


A Blighted Garden

by 999blackflowers



Category: Layton Kyouju Series | Professor Layton Series
Genre: Angst, Dead Dove: Do Not Eat, Emotional Manipulation, Heteronormativity and its consequences, M/M, Mystery, Not Canon Compliant, OCs used to further plot, Recovering from Divorce, Recovering from religion, Religion as self harm, Reunions, Satanic panic, Self Harm, Symbolism, Trigger warnings within work
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-21
Updated: 2020-10-04
Packaged: 2021-03-04 18:15:25
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 14
Words: 27,959
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25430740
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/999blackflowers/pseuds/999blackflowers
Summary: When Luke Triton left London after his adventure with the Professor in Future London, Professor Layton decided not to remain in contact. 18 years later, Hershel is living completely alone in the ruins of his life in a small cottage, when Luke suddenly reappears in his life, incensed and demanding to hold the man "accountable".
Relationships: Hershel Layton/Adult Luke Triton
Comments: 41
Kudos: 22





	1. this fate is too good for you

**Author's Note:**

> A/N from 999blackflowers: Hello, it's (relatively) longfic time! This is something I've been working on for a while. Unfortunately, progress halted at around March because 'rona happened and my brain stopped working enough to write adequately. My brain is getting back into gear gradually and this fic is a favourite of mine. It is not canon compliant as I wrote this initially wanting to see a timeline where Luke never returned after Unwound Future and became resentful, essentially have them go as far apart as possible and eventually come back together.
> 
> The Graphic Depictions of Violence tag is there as this fic discusses self harm. Choose Not To Use Archive Warnings is there as this fic trigger warns by chapter.
> 
> TRIGGER WARNINGS:  
> Divorce  
> Suicidal Thoughts

The dim afternoon sun was shining grey today. All of England had been shrouded in clouds all week, and only now had the grey begun to clear up, leaving thin sheets of white with the sun starting to peek through. 

Yorkshire’s spring was starting to come in. Everyone could feel it, rainstorms becoming more common, and the days gradually becoming slightly longer and longer, the sun rising earlier as well. Finally the stark bare gnarled branches had begun to sprout their leaves once again, flowers beginning to come into bloom.

Somewhere off a long dirt road there was a small cottage. A mastercraft of stonemasonry, irregular stones and rocks having been miraculously placed together to create hardy walls, matched with a thatched roof to complete the perfect cottage look.

Vines and ivy had begun to encroach on the stone, crawlers having begun to make their way up the side - in fact, the whole garden had become quite overgrown, even though winter had come and gone, it seemingly had no impact on the mass of green. Untouched by the winter somehow, perhaps emboldened.

Behind the cottage there were tall towering fruit trees that had neglected to flower - their roots choked by weeds and ivy. Flowerbeds that didn’t carry flowers, merely gorse bush and various invasive plants that’d somehow wormed their way in. Mold and invasive fungus even then had managed to infect the poor ivy plants, somehow the only thing to stop them from growing indefinitely.

The centrepiece of this blighted garden was an exquisite table carved from driftwood found on a distant coast. Sanded to perfection but an irregular shape, with a matching chair. In that matching chair sat a man with his fingers curled in the handle of a teacup. He was reading.

Hershel Layton, age 55.

This was how he spent his days now.

His calloused fingers turned the page of the book - an autobiography of some soldier back in Vietnam. He wasn’t particularly interested in the person or the subject, but in the past few years he’d been devouring whatever he could get his aging hands on. 

He took a brief sip from the teacup and set it down on the driftwood table so he could fully focus on his book. It was particularly easy to lose himself in a book now that he was… no longer working.

Hershel Layton wasn’t a professor anymore. He’d not _retired_ per say, as much as Gressenheller had decided to suddenly eject him 3 years ago. No change in management. No change in his workload. He knew why they fired him. It coincided with his divorce, after all. It was a miracle he was out here in this garden and not in some dark hole.

Oh, beloved Esther.

Esther had come into his life when he was spending his free time doing volunteer work to try and repatch London after the whole incident with Future London. She was in her early 30s and willing to pick him up when he was down. Beautiful dark long hair and a smile like the sun, excited by puzzles and all sorts of things Hershel could get himself tangled into.

She'd made some advances just as Hershel was about to head home for the night. Just a quick trip down to that bolthole restaurant with her - nothing more, he told himself. It was absolutely more. 

Within 6 months they were married, and within a year they had twins. One beautiful girl named Katrielle and a smart young boy named Alfendi. 

15 years of marriage could go sour so quickly.

Their divorce had been swift. Esther with full custody and a restraining order.

Hershel took his tea again to take a deep sip.

He was a man with many regrets.

Dead parents. Adoption. High school friends who drove him out, first boyfriend fell down a chasm and emerged 18 years later as a serial killer, university friends no longer spoke to him, his mentor had finally managed to stop evading death, his beloved beautiful scientist a distant memory, _dearest, dearest, dearest Luke,_ Esther…

Not much he could do now but sit here with his books.

The past three years he’d fallen into a bit of a routine. Wake up late, go for a morning walk, water the garden, make lunch and read books, take his afternoon nap, make dinner, watch the telly, go to bed too late.

Hershel had a brief phase where he went back to church for the first time since his teen years, hoping to recover something from his long dead faith. Screaming to a God he felt didn’t exist and begging to be changed or fixed to absolutely no avail.

He had concluded his attempt to rekindle his faith with the idea that if God was real and good, he would not be going to any kind of heaven, and he would not be allowed any kind of peace. It was too good for him to be sitting here in this blighted garden.

His crushing boredom and crippling loneliness was a privilege. 

Even if he was unemployable thanks to his name having been caught up in that hell of a scandal, he could still live comfortably for another 50 years off his savings in this routine without having to work another day in his life.

This was too good for him.

Hershel’s eyes rose from his book to the clouds above, listening to the wind rustle through the empty skies. 

The human condition -

No matter the company he had, he would always feel emptiness. There was one exception to this time period, 1970-1973. That short time period where he and that bright-eyed toddler sized boy ran around solving all sorts of mysteries and cases, together, hand in hand.

They’d been in love.

They had embraced under the moonlight hundreds of times, held each other close under the covers a thousand, held hands and even kissed deeply. The one thing they didn’t do was make love- Hershel quietly felt a thousand shades of regret for ignoring the boy’s begging for _any_ kind of sexual contact.

And the moment he left Hershel had decided to not respond to his letters. No matter how much it hurt him or how much it hurt Luke.

To simply cut contact was to rip the bandage off. He was sure Luke would grow to resent him - even if they never had sex he would surely begin to manifest some kind of long term problems. A cold uptightness to even those closest to him, crippling daddy issues and a plethora of psychological problems. To cut contact was kindness. If he sent an apology Luke would feel obligated to send a response explaining why he didn’t need to give an apology, and then Hershel would have sent another letter and then they’d just be in contact and Luke would be trapped sending letters.

Hershel drained his teacup, rapping his fingers against the china and slowly placing it down once more. Descriptions of war may have been unfolding on the pages, but his mind was a fog of contemplation of all his various regrets. So many people he couldn’t apologize to who needed one.

So many people he missed. Oh, sweet Esther, sweet Esther. Dearest Randall, Darling Claire, Luke, a light shining brighter than the sun.

As Hershel glanced to his empty teacup, an important question was now tingling in his mind. A question that came every day at this exact hour.

_Why am I still living?_

His brain returned an answer quickly.

_Fear._

He absolutely did not deserve to be living.

Hershel folded the page of his book - once upon a time he’d been concerned with keeping his books pristine, but as the years had passed he’d stopped caring. They were books. They were pieces of paper bound together by cardboard. They weren’t holy. He shut the book with the folded page and picked up his teacup. He needed to refill it so he had a pleasant scent to accompany his spiralling thoughts.

As he moved through the darkened living room of the cottage to the kitchenette, his ears pricked with a knock at the door.

The hairs on the back of his neck stood on end as he slowly placed the teacup down. Perhaps the police had finally come to collect him. That was understandable. Perhaps an axe murderer? Not a pleasing prospect. Jehovah’s Witnesses? A miracle they were still existing as a religion after their 1975 apocalypse prophecy fell through.

Hershel smoothed his turtleneck, trying to ignore the way it clung to his worryingly thin aging frame. He had stopped wearing his hat for Esther just after they’d gotten married, but it still rested on a dusty shelf. But he went to the door, taking the brass doorknob and slowly opened it. He was thinking he was ready for whatever awaited him on his doorstep.

He was not.


	2. living in sin

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TRIGGER WARNINGS:  
> Being kicked out

Luke Triton, age 31. 

He wiped the sweat from his brow. The hat he was wearing stuck to his forehead, his hair tucked inside. He had been working over a grill and going back and forth between the line and the grill where he had all sorts of cut up vegetables frying on this giant hot metal slab.

The kitchen was busier than usual, but even then that was relatively quiet. The kitchen staff could take their sweet ass time with everything and still get the food out on time.

Only quality food here in this restaurant. Lord of the Fries, funnily enough. Just a good ol’ New York burger joint with a twist - the place was completely vegetarian. No steak, no mince, no chicken. 

Luke had been working at this restaurant for the last 4 years; before that he’d been struggling to get by just waiting tables until his wife had told him to try to move up in the world. And so he’d managed to get by.

The restaurant was failing, it was clear. Even a neat gimmick wasn’t enough to draw people off the main street to try a small bolthole burger place with a dumb pun for the name. And no matter how hard Luke worked or how much sweat and blood he poured into his work he couldn’t cut it.

Not his fault it was failing. Advertising was expensive and people likely wouldn’t just wander into such a tiny restaurant on a shady side street. 

“Ay, Luke.” One of Luke’s kitchen staff spoke up, a young man with dark hair and white gloves looking towards him. “It’s 11pm. I’ll take it from here.”

“Oh, thank you.” Luke gave a thankful nod. He worked too long shifts to keep things going. His wife Irene didn’t work at all - she preferred to paint, sitting at home with her canvas and her acrylics. Sometimes her artworks would make it into exhibitions and she’d earn a pretty dollop of side cash to go. 

Luke peeled his gloves off as he walked towards the clock in-clock out machine at the back, pushing his slip in and walking out through the corral to find his car.

The night sky was dark, light pollution having choked the stars. He fumbled with his car keys as he found his car in the staff parking lot, slotting the key in and turning so he could actually get in.

Today was Wednesday. Luke pushed the keys into the ignition and started the car, his eyes travelling up to his reflection in the rear view mirror. He could see his own eyes and the dark rings around them. Wednesday was a night he didn’t exactly look forward to.

Their house was a bit extravagant for his job especially since he wasn’t sure he’d have it for much longer, but even then it was just a small house with a porch off in the suburbs. But Irene had wanted a nice picket fence house and Luke had been able to spend some of his money from his parents to get the down payment, but mortgage payments were tough. His father hadn’t given him much.

Irene had hoped to marry a wealthier man. His father was somewhere in San Francisco with champagne and canapes galore, his new young wife at his side and surrounded by other incredibly rich men, he was sure of it. But Luke would have to wait for the man to croak before he actually got any kind of inheritance, and even then, there was a good chance it’d wind up in the bank account of his wife and leave absolutely nothing for him.

Or someone would kill him and write themselves into his will, leaving absolutely nothing for anyone else, then report themselves as the only witness. It wasn’t impossible.

Luke would’ve bitterly laughed at that thought, but he was stuck in traffic going to a place he didn’t want to go. They’d been married for 8 years and they’d had a bit of… trouble, sexually.

Their marriage was stale. It had been from the day it began. Luke had married his best friend, Irene had married the love of her life. Two very different things. And he wasn’t…  _ attracted  _ to her, exactly. But all the people in their church group was constantly asking - is a stork coming? Is there something in the oven? There was one man who would shake his hand every Tuesday and give him unsolicited sex advice.

Luke gripped the steering wheel, feeling sheer  _ disgust  _ writhe through him at the things he kept getting for  _ advice.  _

Irene had started tracking her ovulation. Apparently tonight was their scheduled night where she would be most likely to conceive.

How on  _ earth  _ was he supposed to take care of his wife with a  _ child  _ on the way? His job was unstable as is but Irene was  _ set  _ on having said child, probably many more if she could. “ _ God will bless us and pull us through _ ,” she would always assure when he raised any objections. Usually followed by “ _ Either that or you don’t want to have sex with your wife. _ ”

Both were true.

Maybe he’d want to have sex with his wife more if his sexuality hadn’t been fucking crippled and smashed against the rock age 10 to age 13 when he was running around going fucking wild with the fucking dipshit cunt useless pedophile  _ Professor Hershel Layton  _ and now he was broken and seemingly exclusively attracted to older men.

His pastor was pretty hot- stop.

Luke turned the radio off in traffic, his eyes trailing to a cross hanging from the rear view mirror. “Oh Lord, please cleanse me of my sins, I beg for your forgiveness. Please remove these sinful thoughts from my mind, I rebuke them in the name of the Lord. Amen.”

…

His pastor was still hot.

Try again.

“Oh Lord, please please please cleanse me of my sins, please wash my suffering from… um, my soul, remove these sinful thoughts from my head, I rebuke them in the name of Jesus Christ, the Lord, Amen.”

Once again he was still smoking hot. Stubble and greying flecks in a beautiful dark mane of hair, a square jaw and a suit and a Bible clutched in his hands. Talking about the joys of a relationship with Jesus Christ.

Either this was a test from God or he wasn’t doing it right. 

\--

A grandfather clock ticked behind the dining table. A small hutch with a lace pattern laid over it, a little cross necklace resting in the centre. A dining table with candles that hadn’t been lit in a long time and a painting on the wall that wasn’t sold. A burning landscape, stark lines of red and white slashes of lightning across the canvas. Spotless white empty walls.

And Luke stared across the table, his vision blurring thanks to the hanging light right above the table shining into his upper eyes. On the other side, his wife, Irene. Married 8 years now, long blond hair and a modest blouse. She had laid out three magazines on the table. All Playgirl Magazine, each page ruffled and curled from use.

He buried his face in his hands, unable to meet her gaze anymore.

“I-I--”

“I don’t really care for an explanation, I  _ know  _ why you have them.” Irene’s glare was tired.

“I’ve been praying and praying and praying.” Luke spoke hoarsely.

“Well, clearly you’re not properly repentant if you’ve still got these.” Irene returned, rubbing her temples. “God can read your heart, you know.”

“How else am I supposed to- how am I supposed to get it up so we can actually  _ make love _ ?” The words  _ make love  _ fell off his tongue like they were a lie. Not so much of a lie as a refusal to say the word sex or fuck around her. 

“I honestly don’t know and I don’t care, you’re gay and clearly you don’t care about changing.” Irene got to her feet, pulling a large canvas bag up with her. “I packed your stuff.”

“Where will I go, then?” Luke’s eyes slid up to her.

“Away. I don’t care anymore.  _ Fuck  _ off.” She spat, tossing the bag down. “Take your stuff and go.”

And with that, Irene got to her feet and stormed upstairs. Luke sat and silently listened to the ticking of the clock.

It was only then that he noticed her wedding ring was on the table. The little gem he’d spent so much money on rested there, unwanted. 

Luke slid his own off and unzipped the bag, putting it inside. At the very least he could sell it. He didn’t feel much in his chest, just a dull pounding numbness. In a way… this was his chance. This was his chance to  _ leave.  _

His eyes moved to the cross on the hutch. God was remaining stiff lipped, stoic and stern as he simply refused to wave his great hand to fix this. To fix him. To fix anything. 

Luke slid those magazines regretfully into his bag. Irene was a good Christian woman and she didn’t need such objects of sin in her house. He was a Christian man but he wasn’t exactly a  _ good one.  _ His relationship with Jesus had never been good in the first place.

As he slid the magazines into the bag, his eyes were caught by a glint of green inside. He pulled it and found a good wad of cash.

So Irene hadn’t left him with nothing. 

His brain immediately bubbled up with some ridiculous fucking plan. Oh, it was stupid. Oh, it was silly, but  _ god  _ it felt cathartic already just to do it.

America had never been his home. He’d been moved to Seattle by his parents who then ditched for San Francisco, then he’d moved out to New York on his own. Very distinct cities but they weren’t home. And oh baby he was coming HOME.


	3. collision

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TRIGGER WARNINGS:  
> Child sex abuse mention  
> Internalized homophobia

It took a moment for Hershel’s brain to click.

The man in the doorway had caramel coloured hair, all a mess and unwashed, a furrowed brow and raspy slow heavy breathing. Rage in his beautiful eyes. A white button-down shirt, sweat sticking it to his chest, black belted formal pants. A crucifix hanging around his neck. 

“Luke.” Hershel whispered. At his doorstep. After all these years. His hands holding that teacup began to shake. “B...but- how?”

“I took a WEEK getting here.” Luke failed to keep his voice from rising, marching inside with his canvas bag over his shoulder, letting it slip down into the dusty living room. Hershel moved aside for him, blinking in… sheer disbelief. He couldn’t believe his eyes. He’d grown so much in the past 18 years.

“Yes, but, why?”

“I-” Luke pointed a finger in his direction, giving him a stare. “I am here to hold you fucking  _ accountable. _ ”

“Please sit down and explain.” Hershel spoke in his softest voice to try and get the poor man to calm down.

“You  _ fucking ruined  _ me.” Luke hissed bitterly. “You’ve ruined my  _ life,  _ my  _ days at college  _ you’ve ruined my  _ fucking marriage. _ ”

Hershel paused with the teacup in hand, slowly blinking. “Your… your marriage?” He whispered, as it occurred to him he… hadn’t known what poor Luke had been up to for the past 18 years. 

“My marriage, yes.” Luke crossed his arms, sitting down on the floral secondhand couch Hershel had purchased with this cottage. “You ruined it.”

Hershel decided to slowly take a seat on the opposing couch, trying to look at Luke’s gaze without thinking back to those beautiful eyes he’d seen with that beautiful little boy he’d known so many years ago.

“ _ Professor,  _ please don’t play coy.” Luke hissed. “You know what you’ve done.”

“You are blaming me entering a relationship with you at age 10 as the reason your marriage fell apart.” Hershel spoke aloud to himself, as well as to Luke to try and untangle this situation.

“Yes.” Luke nodded slowly. “It’s your fault.”

“You entered a marriage with a woman?” Hershel’s eyes rose from his lap. “I think being a gay man mar-”

“I am NOT homosexual.” Luke asserted, pounding his fists once onto the couch strongly. “I suffer from SSA which is silencing my normal heterosexual attraction, and that’s YOUR fault.”

“SSA?”   


“Same-sex attraction.” Luke sighed. 

“I believe if your ‘normal heterosexual attraction’ has been silenced by your same sex attraction, that would make you  _ gay. _ ” Hershel spoke quietly.

“Shut up, you’re a f-fucking pedophile, I don’t have to listen to what you have to say.” Luke grumbled. “And you ruined my life.”

Hershel decided to get to his feet, rubbing his sore head and deciding to just go to the kitchen. Luke was still fuming on his couch but he wasn’t going to put up with it.  _ Why  _ did he come back if he wanted to just yell at him? Lord, he had grown up to be handsome. But he was… speaking…  _ like that.  _ Why?

He went to fill the kettle over the tap and placed it back on its holder, clicking it. The electric kettle was a wonderful invention. And he grabbed a tea bag- and another teacup for Luke.

He walked around the corner slowly, bowing his head gently to Luke sitting on that couch. He was just… here now.

“Would you like a cup of tea, my bo-”

“Don’t fucking call me  _ boy _ . I’m 31.” Luke gave him a fiery glare.

“With extra sugar, then.” Hershel mumbled, deciding to move back into the kitchen.

He got both tea bags for the cups and wondered if Luke had developed a taste for coffee since he’d left. He certainly spoke a bit like an American now. He certainly had a Boston twang to his vowels… He was also… well. Like that.

Luke had liked boys as a young man. He’d recounted his crush on one of his classmates once, trembling and whispering about how he wanted to kiss his hair and hold his hand. A recount given around age 10. 

Hershel would concede he may have ruined many things about the poor man, but. He absolutely  _ did not  _ make him  _ gay  _ in any sense, and he certainly didn’t ruin his marriage he’d only just now heard about. The kettle boiled with a click, and he grabbed it to carefully pour both cups of tea.

He took one of the teacups and took the teabag out after it had a chance to steep, dropping the teabag in and grabbing some milk from the fridge, as well as some sugar from the pantry. He had taken up a bit of baking recently to do after he’d made himself lunch so he wasn’t only eating instant noodles.

Hershel began to carry the cup of tea over to the couch, to see Luke had disappeared from the sofa, the door to the garden at the back flung open. Well. He stepped through the door, walking over the stones in the ground to see Luke at that driftwood table with the book he had been reading.

“Luke…” Hershel approached cautiously with that cup of tea in his aging hands, seeing the man’s eyes flick up from the book.

“I need some time to remember why I came back to England.” Luke mumbled. “Other than holding you accountable.”

“If you want to hold me accountable, I’ve already been punished.” Hershel spoke softly, placing the cup of tea down on the driftwood table. Luke’s piercing eyes stared up at him again. “You are welcome to stay here as long as you wish.”

Luke’s eyes went over to the tea, then back up to Hershel. He did not respond.

“I’m going to take a nap. I’ll prepare dinner, then I’d like to be able to properly talk to you.” Hershel spoke sternly.

“I’m not a child, you can’t speak to me like that.” 

“You are an adult but you have invited yourself to my house after 18 years, and for now I’d like you to be more polite to me.”

Wind rustled through the blighted garden. Overgrown. A shadow of what it once was. Luke took a deep sip from his tea before he spoke again.

“Pedophiles don’t deserve my politeness.” Luke spoke, his voice a low hiss.

“I understand.” Hershel sighed. “I’ll take a nap and see how you feel later.”

“Fuck off and die in your sleep.” Luke sipped his tea again.

Hershel did not resist or respond to Luke’s hostility. He just turned and slowly began to move back inside to try and comprehend what had just happened.

How long had it been since he’d talked to anyone? He wondered as he re-entered the cottage, Luke’s voice ringing in his ears. He stood in that cottage and grazed his eyes over the walls, trying to… see if there was anything out of place. Anything abnormal. Anything  _ different. _

Hershel was social for an introvert. A day or two without human interaction? That was fine, he had his books and he had the sunlight. Three days or four? Beginning to go a bit stir crazy. He had a lot of thoughts in his brain he couldn’t just spill out onto paper anymore. He had so many thoughts. Day five or six he went to the supermarket to stock up on milk or sugar or whatever he needed.

Surely chatting it up with the supermarket cashiers stopped him from losing his mind. Puzzles were fine as mental stimuli to keep his brain working and active, and his walks along the dirt road as he stood in the beautiful vibrant countryside were keeping him fit and active despite his creeping age. But his social faculties… 

It occurred to Hershel he couldn’t remember the last time he’d gone to the supermarket. A week or more? Two weeks? 

He hurried into the kitchen to check the milk in the fridge, the expiry dates - he had just one bottle left, just under half empty - it expired tomorrow. He needed to go to the supermarket at some point.

And to get something for Luke. Luke would need something to eat. Luke was a good little boy. He was so sweet. And so so so cute-

“He’s 31.” Hershel whispered as he closed the fridge. The photos of the boy he hung upstairs were nearly two decades old, faded into sepia tones. That was not Luke anymore.

He quickly strode back to the open door to the garden to check if Luke was still there.

Indeed, he was sitting there, lounging on that driftwood carved chair surrounded by that blighted dying greenery. That book in one hand and the teacup in another. His hair had been lit by the dappled sunlight.

His shirt still clung to his chest from his drying sweat, and his pants seemed to hug his thighs and tight arse. A half lidded look in his eyes as he put the teacup down to lazily turn the page.

_ Why now? Why after 18 years? _

His  _ marriage?  _

It suddenly hit Hershel that he hadn’t talked to the boy once since his move to New York. He didn’t know about Esther. He didn’t know about Katrielle or Alfendi and  _ his  _ marriage and subsequent divorce.

So much could’ve happened in those 18 years.

It occurred to him he might not be able to get much out of him until he figured out just what had happened.

And so Hershel went out the front door, stumbling in the dimmed sunlight as he made his way to his car. He’d long replaced the Laytonmobile after it became just too expensive to maintain, oiling the parts and meticulously caring for it like some kind of intricate puzzle only worked for so long until one of the parts just outright broke, and he found he’d have to shell out 50k to get a replacement for it. Vintage parts, you see.

So he entered his refurbished 60s antique car - the Laytonmobile Mark 2, as he called it - and turned the ignition to start heading off to grab some groceries. Luke wouldn’t care if he was gone.

Assuming he was really even there.

\--

Hershel had a point in his life where he’d suffered chronic nightmares using eyes as some kind of motif. Staring, exposing, sharp gazes cutting him open. In the stark supermarket light he began to wonder if that was a precognition of sorts.

He had a small basket tucked under his arm where he’d gotten a heaping of vegetables and some mushrooms. Luke’s favourite meal as a child had been roast lamb, but he had taken a stab in the dark to guess the man might’ve gone vegetarian considering his animal talking ability.

In a mirror behind the baskets of vegetable produce, slightly fogged up and misty, he saw two people chatting away behind him in the reflection of the mirror. He paused to watch for a moment, watching their eyes turn to his back, and for their conversation to turn from excited chatter and laughter to hushed tones and whispers.

He tended to have that effect on the atmosphere. His mere presence seemingly made rooms hold their breath, dampening and silencing existing conversation. 

Ignore it. Hershel slipped a bag of carrots into the bag - wishing he’d made a shopping list before he came here. Too late now. He drifted between the aisles, plucking whatever he needed. Yet he’d developed a talent for somehow detecting when people’s eyes were on him.

A side-glance, a double take. A glare. A dawning look of horror and disgust.

Perhaps it was best he didn’t go out more. This was just the supermarket. Hershel ignored a piercing glare as he plucked a box of tea from the shelf - cranberry and hibiscus. Looked delicious. And he dropped it into the bag, beginning to head to the checkout.

_ SASHA _

The young tired looking woman with her greasy hair in a ponytail, frail teenager’s hands keying in the numbers of the various produce Hershel had brought. A flustered look as she grabbed for the sheet identifying each product with its number, a quick scan over the laminated paper. 

“Lovely weather, isn’t it? It’s a pleasant break from all the rain.” Hershel made a bit of small talk. “I’m sure more warmth is on the way.”

“Y-yes, I’m sure, sir.” The checkout operator seemed increasingly frantic as her deft and nimble fingers clutched the wrinkled plastic bag to place on the scales. Her voice was shaky and she was clearly tripping over her consonants. 

Hershel’s eyes went down to her shaking hands as she accidentally rested the heel of her palm on the scales.

“Miss-”

“Oh.” She lifted her hand off the scales. “Thank you, Mr. Layton.”

_ She knew his name. _

“It’s…” Hershel would rattle off his  _ true duty of any gentleman  _ routine, but if this lady knew his name she knew it because it was sullied. Soiled. Kicked in the dirt then pissed on and pureed with shit and blood mixed in. “It’s no problem.” He forced himself to complete the sentence.

Pleasant. 

“Really… really looking forward to that warm weather.” The woman spoke, breathlessly. Clearly her chest was tight. Anxiety.

It occurred to him there could be the judgemental gaze of everyone in this room on his back, and he wouldn’t notice thanks to them making an effort to look away. If he wasn’t seen, they could pretend he wasn’t there.

As the checkout operator finished packing his bags, she held them out with a dead look in her eyes, and no smile on her face as she spoke her usual  _ have a fantastic day, come again _ .

“You too, Miss Sasha.” Hershel took his bags with a nod, until the checkout operator’s eyes narrowed.   
  
“Die.”

“Alright.”

Hershel spun around to begin walking outside to find his car, although as he stepped outside his eyes were caught by a colorful sign and a stall with two bored looking young teens. The sign had twin pink cupcakes drawn onto them with felt-tips and vivid, along with BAKE SALE written in lettering to look like pink sprinkled donuts. 

He could spend a couple extra pounds. So he wandered over to the sign, looking over the selection of various baked goods. The two young boys looked up to him, until Hershel began to speak.

“May I ask where the money from this sale is going?” Hershel asked, putting his bag down to reach into his pocket to grab his wallet again.

“It’s going to the Yorkshire Young Men’s Organization.” One of the boys spoke up in a bored monotone.

“To buy new sports equipment for the youth.” The other grumbled, leaning over and dully using a coin to scratch markings into the white tablecloth.

“I’ll take one of the cupcakes, thanks.” Hershel held out a couple of coins, letting them slide from the palm of his hand onto the tablecloth to avoid making any hand contact-

“Coming right up!” A woman hurried over, a short bob of brown hair and her purse. She stood behind the boys and placed her hands on both their shoulders, giving a steely glare. “Anything else you’d like to buy today, sir?”

“Just the cupcake, miss.” Hershel understood what that glare was saying as one of the boys slid the cupcake into a paper bag - which the woman snatched from his hand and held it out to him.

“Enjoy, have a lovely day.” The woman spoke without a hint of a smile in her eyes or on her lips.

Hershel took it and understood the message.  _ Go away. _

“You too, miss.” Hershel gave a nod and picked his bag off the ground to go walk to his car in the parking lot.

As much as he didn’t like to think about it, he had become the scary man who lived just outside of the town shops. The monster in the woods. The man you didn’t want to run into. 

_ He may seem polite, but he’s a monster. _ People would gossip as he walked by.  _ Did you hear? After he saved London he beheaded the kid he was working with, and did unspeakable things to the boy’s severed head and throat! Which is why you haven’t heard from the kid ever... _

Or the more accurate version of the rumour. Still not accurate, but closer. 

_ Apparently he adopted a kid just to molest him, and then after he got in all the papers worldwide for saving London from some terrorists the kid got taken away. _

And then there was the classic-

_ He moved here after his wife divorced him because he was wanking to videotapes of his kids. _

Also untrue. Katrielle and Alfendi were darlings. He had somehow managed to successfully activate some kind of switch in his brain which disabled any kind of off colour thoughts towards them. 

And now he was living in his cottage in borderline solitary confinement, reading the afternoons away in his blighted dying garden. 

As Hershel started his car, he quietly hoped Luke would still be there once he got home. Hopefully, hopefully, hopefully he wasn’t a hallucination.

… And it occurred to Hershel that if Luke wasn’t a hallucination, he really,  _ really really really  _ didn’t want him to leave.


	4. attraction

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TRIGGER WARNINGS:  
> Prayer  
> Religious Gaslighting  
> Internalized Homophobia

Luke was uncharacteristically silent as Hershel put a plate of risotto down in front of him. The garden had become steeped in golden sunset hues, bathing that driftwood table in an orange glow. The sun would leave it soon, Hershel knew. But Luke had seemingly made it halfway through his book and… he was still here.

Hershel had pulled out a dining chair to sit by the driftwood table, passing some cutlery to Luke. He did not manage any kind of thank you.

Rather, he clasped his hands together and began to speak in a revered tone.

“Dear Lord, please bless this food for me and give me strength for the coming day, whatever I choose to do.” He spoke, eyes shut. “Amen.”

Hershel was kind of just watching this, mildly confused. “I wouldn’t have expected you to become religious.”

“I’d say you need Jesus but I don’t think He’d want you.” Luke mumbled, taking the knife and fork to start eating.

“What lead to your conversion?” Hershel asked as he took a spoonful of the risotto he’d made.

“Don’t call it conversion, it’s how I found my Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, amen.” Luke spoke with a sudden passion. That crucifix around his neck…

“Alright.” Hershel made the decision to respect whatever this was. “Tell me about your marriage then.”

“I’ve already told you it was troubled.” Luke mumbled, pushing the risotto around on a fork and singling out a little bit of bacon on the plate to push aside. So he was a vegetarian. “And now it’s over.”

“Could I ask you a question?” Hershel raised his eyes from his plate.

“No.”

“Were you… in love with your wife? At any point? Be honest.” Hershel spoke in a calm tone.

“She was my best friend, I suppose.” Luke murmured. “You marry your best friend, don’t you?”

“Usually when people say you marry your best friend, there’s a romantic component there.” Hershel pointed out. 

“You’re right.” Luke got another forkful of risotto for himself, sighing.

“I’m just struggling to comprehend why I would be at fault for the failure of a marriage I wasn’t aware existed.” Hershel spoke quietly. “Considering you’ve said you’ve come to hold me accountable on that.”

“I’ll fuckin’ tell you why it’s your fault my marriage failed.” Luke jabbed the knife in Hershel’s general direction, semi-threateningly.

\--

_Luke, age 24 sat in a room, one on one, with Pastor Joseph sitting opposite him. This was the pastor’s living room, and it was lavish. A new rug, the walls painted white - with one whole wall dedicated to a beautiful rendition of a verse in cursive. A large television on the TV cabinet, and a huge collection of VHS tapes and music._

_Paintings on the wall of Jesus and his disciples, a cross on the other wall. Twin leather sofas._

_“I hear your wife Irene said you’ve been having some issues lately.” Pastor Joseph spoke in his soulful deep Texan drawl. “What kinda issues? It can be between you, me, and the Lord.” He leaned over, his thick fingers intertwined together. He had large hands... His hair was dark although a couple wisps of grey could be detected. A square strong jaw with a five o’clock shadow, a strong look in his eyes._

_Luke’s eyes went to the cross on the wall, depicting Jesus in his final moments. And then back to Pastor Joseph. His own hands were so small and dainty compared to Pastor Joseph’s. His little hands could probably fit into his palm- stop it._

_“Did she tell you?” Luke spoke up, grasping at his head for his fedora which he had taken off at the door. Nope. That looked stupid. He was nervous. Like a high schooler around his crush. His eyes were penetrating into his soul._

_“She did not. She said she doesn’t know what’s wrong, and that maybe I could help y’all.” Pastor Joseph assured. “Y’should be telling your wife your problems first, but.”_

_Luke stared down into his hands so he didn’t have to look at the man’s beautiful sculpted face. He’d… aged like a vintage wine. Fuck. He sure had a type. Older men in a position of authority above him. Well. Here he went._

_“I… I am gay.” Luke croaked, not raising his eyes. The word slipped off his tongue like a poison of all the self-hatred that had emerged within the past couple years. “And, I thought… I thought maybe marriage would fix it.”_

_“Oh, my sweet boy.” Pastor Joseph cooed sympathetically._

_Luke’s eye twitched as their gazes met._

_Pastor Joseph began to speak in a more serious tone. “You are not a homosexual, you merely suffer from same-sex attraction. There is a difference, and He loves you for doing the godly thing and entering a holy marriage.”_

_“Will me being… gay, just, disappear?” Luke whispered, hopefully._

_“God can undoubtedly wipe your same-sex attraction away and then, you’ll be much happier in your marriage.” Pastor Joseph spoke assuringly. “It just takes lots of prayer, and lots of faith.”_

_Prayer and faith. Then he could be happy in his marriage. Luke inhaled and exhaled._

_“So…” Luke began to lean forwards on his seat as if preparing to stand up-_

_“We’re not done.” Pastor Joseph raised his hand to interrupt Luke._

_“What else do we need to discuss, then?” Luke leaned back into the seat._

_“Your same-sex attraction is simply that - same sex attraction. Surely you’ve had a couple crushes on women in the past. Tell me about your first.” Pastor Joseph spoke warmly._

_And Luke leaned back into the seat, desperate to think of any crushes he might have had. Any._

_“There was a girl named Arianna who I met when I was 10.” Luke recounted. “We played together sometimes and at the time I thought it was a crush, but, in retrospect, I’d just chosen a random girl to have a crush on to look normal.”_

_Pastor Joseph listened to this recount and gave a deep belly laugh, leaning back into his seat-_

_“What?” Luke suddenly felt like he’d said something wrong._

_“Oh, dear boy-”_

_Luke’s eye twitched again._

_“-that was indeed a crush. So being attracted to women is possible for you, and your same sex attraction is just a psychological disorder you’re struggling with.” Pastor Joseph spoke, shaking off a last chuckle._

_Did he have a crush on Arianna? He was incredibly hurt by her rejection, and that one kiss she gave him one time made him feel something. Maybe his confusion from that kiss was a crush? Hmm. Did he, um, choose her because he already liked her or something? Luke felt his reasoning sketchy, but…_

_“So, you’re heterosexual struggling with SSA. We’ve established that, but what’s the source of the SSA?” Pastor Joseph began to speak in a soft tone._

_“The source?"_

_“A traumatic event that may have started it.”_

_A single event popped into Luke’s mind. Not a traumatic event, an event he looked back on quite fondly. But… if he really was straight before some event happened, it would be-_

_“Professor.” Luke whispered to himself._

_“Ah?” Pastor Joseph tilted his head. “What was that?”_

_“The professor.” Luke whispered again, louder this time._

_“Tell me about the professor.” Pastor Joseph leaned forward in his seat. Luke tried to ignore how kissable and soft his lips looked._

_“When I was 10 years old…” Luke shut his eyes to recall those vivid beautiful memories that he’d cherished so long. “I wrote a letter to a man named Hershel Layton to get his assistance in a case where… long story short, someone was trying to destroy the town.”_

_“Aaand?”_

_“Once it was all over I had the biggest crush on him, um, and I said I loved him and he said he loved me too, but then he tried to kill himself, and I stopped him, and then we were kind of a couple…”_

_“A couple?” Pastor Joseph’s face turned to a sympathetic look._

_“And we moved in together and he set me up a room but I would always crawl into his bed, and that just… kept going for 3 years.” Luke murmured. “And he was my first love.”_

_“He was taking advantage of you.” Pastor Joseph reminded him-_

_“I know, I know.” Luke sighed._

_“Did he… touch you?” Pastor Joseph spoke softly, trying to ask... gently._

_“No. Not once. He made a big thing out of it.” Luke crossed his arms. “He refused, and… honestly, I’m glad…”_

_“What happened after those three years?”_

_“Well, my parents moved to Seattle and now I’m here in the States. And he… didn’t reply to any of my letters.” Luke’s voice went quiet._

_“Mmmm.” Pastor Joseph took a moment to think. “That has to be the source.”_

_“Sir, my crush began when I was 10.” Luke reminded him. “Before he even… did anything or said anything himself. I don’t consider the experience… traumatic.”_

_“Well, clearly you’re in some form of denial, because you having SSA would most likely have developed from that experience.” Pastor Joseph spoke. “This professor inflicted you with it.”_

_Luke took his face into his hands. That did… that did make sense. Perhaps._

_“Now. I can promise you this.” Pastor Joseph got up from his seat and went behind Luke’s sofa, placing both hands on his shoulders. Luke pulled his hands away from his face, sitting up and looking up. A light gasp._

_“Pastor Joseph?”_

_“With enough prayer, and enough faith, God can wipe your same-sex attraction away, and then your marriage will be happy.” Pastor Joseph spoke softly, tracing Luke’s jaw with his fingers. Luke’s eyes fluttered shut, from either a prayer starting or… arousal._

_Luke began to breathe faster feeling the man’s finger on his jaw._

_“Dear Lord, we present Luke Triton before you and ask for all his troubles and all his trauma to be wiped away. We ask that his marriage can get off to a better start and we pray for his same-sex attraction to be wiped away. And in Jesus’s name…”_

_“Amen.” Luke opened his eyes._

\--

“You made me develop same-sex attraction.” Luke hissed. “And if I didn’t have it, then I’d be able to have a happy marriage.” 

“Luke.” Hershel exhaled after hearing him tell such a long story about his pastor’s pseudo-psychology discussion. “Luke, dear boy-”

“I’m 31.”

“Luke, dearest.” 

“Don’t call me dearest.”

“Luke.” Hershel exhaled once again, before beginning to speak uninterrupted. “I remember you sitting on my lap recounting how you wanted to kiss one of the boys in your class when you were still in Misthallery Primary.”

“So?”

“I did not make you gay.” Hershel concluded. “You’ve always been gay.”

Luke gave him a dark glare, seemingly searching for something to say for a good long few seconds. His eyes narrowed as he found it - “Pedophile.”

“I am aware.” Hershel shut his eyes. “I think if you’re here to try and hold me accountable, I think you should know I’ve already been punished.”

“Punished?!” Luke slammed his fists down onto the table, making the cutlery shake and ting against the plates. “You’re living in the beautiful English countryside in a perfect cottage with this fucking garden you can’t be bothered to maintain because you’re too busy napping and reading!”

Hershel did not respond, his eyes flicking up and making direct eye-contact. Silence.

“You are planning on staying the night here, aren’t you?” Hershel tried to abruptly change the topic.

“Where else do I have to go?!” Luke snarled.

“Then you can sleep on the sofa in the living room.” Hershel got up, taking his plate. “I’m going to retire for the evening seeing as any conversation I try to have with you turns into screaming.”

“Alright, go be a coward.” Luke mumbled as he watched Hershel leave, carefully stepping over the stones embedded in the ground, carrying his plate.

It was so unfair for Pastor Joseph to be so fucking hot. Luke had many a wet dream where he’d be on his knees deepthroating his cock or sucking on his balls, getting his head patted as he did so. Getting beckoned to the wall and fucked senselessly. Getting to touch his stubble and run his hand through his greying hair. Kissing his chest and-

“Dear LORD, PLEASE remove these thoughts from my head, I rebuke them in the NAME of the LORD, AMEN.” Luke shouted, clasping his hands together suddenly as he prayed, feeling guilt seep into his stomach. He was disgusting. Fucking disgusting. Even if Hershel didn’t make him gay he was still gay and ****

He frantically looked around the table, looking for something, anything. ****

Hershel heard a yell from the garden, but presently he honestly didn’t care. He went to the kitchen to brew some tea for himself. Chamomile was best at this time of night, even though it was barely sunset, he hadn’t gotten his afternoon nap and he just wanted to go to bed. If he were to approach Luke he’d be yelled at once more and make absolutely nothing better. And sometimes he probably just needed to scream into the void.

And so Hershel filled the kettle, clicked it on, and went upstairs to find where he’d put that other book. That book was far more pleasant than the soldier’s tale, he found.


	5. indoctrination in adulthood

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TRIGGER WARNINGS:  
> Discussion of Religion  
> Death Mention  
> Self Harm Mention  
> Mention of Pray the Gay Away

Hershel awoke to birdsong just outside his window. A little bluebird must be perching in the apple tree outside, he thought. The sun shone through cracks in the curtains, and, well, this felt like the best night’s sleep he’d had in a long time. 

He sat up, stretching and slipping out of bed to slide his feet into some old grungy but comfortable slippers. He slept in a singlet and boxers, but as he went to the door, he pulled on a dressing gown to keep himself warm in the rest of the house. The lower floor was usually quite cold in the mornings and without these slippers his feet would freeze. Chilblains weren’t fun.

He noticed the pillows and blankets he’d set up for Luke just before he went to bed were vacant. The door to the garden was open. Clearly his favourite place. 

He shuffled over to the door to peek behind it, only to spot Luke sitting cross legged on one of the stones, one leg over the other, his eyes shut as he faced the rising sun. Hershel found his eyes trailing on his toned smooth back. 

He had certainly grown up to be handsome. 

Hershel decided he needed his tea before he wanted to engage. Just… He needed a few more seconds to admire him.

Luke took a deep breath, raising his hands to the sun and holding them above his head, pressed together, before down into a prayer position. His arms were similarly toned with firm muscle on his thin build. He wasn’t exactly  _ ripped,  _ but he did indeed have muscle there.

“I know you’re watching, Hershel.” He spoke, not bothering to turn his head. “Go away, I’m meditating.”

_ Meditating? _

“I’ll leave you to it.” Hershel decided to back off, after he could tear his eyes off Luke’s beautifully sculpted back. 

He slunk to the kitchen to start preparing breakfast for the both of them. He had plenty of mushrooms left over, as well as a couple dozen eggs to make one hell of an English breakfast for his guest. Even if he was being an absolute pain in the arse, it… it was nice to know  _ The Luke Triton  _ was presently in his house. The thought made him smile. 

As Hershel pulled a chopping board and his sharpest knife to start cutting up some tomatoes, a thought occurred to him. Luke was vegetarian and wouldn’t be eating bacon or sausages. And… how did he like his eggs? His knife trembled on the board for a moment, lingering over a fresh tomato.

Wait a second. He remembered  _ just  _ how Luke liked his eggs. Genius.

He eagerly cut up the tomatoes into small slices and tossed them into a frying pan, grabbing a couple eggs from the fridge. He dropped one into a saucepan of hot water, turning the gas up to high, and got another saucepan with boiling water to crack two eggs into.

Three elements going. He had gotten quite good at cooking in the last decade - with Esther back to work he had often had to cook dinner for the kids and goddamn he had made it his mission to get good at cooking. And he certainly had gotten good.

Back to the chopping board, he swiftly cut up a set of mushrooms, removing the tomato slices and placing them on a paper towel to drain excess oils, and in the mushrooms went to the now free pan. And on another pan - four in total now - he grabbed some bacon and sausages from the fridge and dropped it into the newly placed pan - surely Luke would hear the constant sizzle from outside.

He flicked on the rangehood to prevent the bacon and sausages spitting - and the light, having just remembered that existed. 

Could he make some tea as well while this was happening? Of course he could. He flicked the jug on again to reheat what remaining water was in there from last night.

And he could prepare the plates, too. So he grabbed two plates from the cabinet and put it down next to his cooking space, and grabbing an egg-cup for Luke. 2 slices of toast in the toaster, down for 2 minutes.

Hershel divided the tomato slices across the two plates, and pushed a heaping of still sizzling hot fried mushrooms onto both, being sure to give one plate just a little bit extra. He grabbed some tongs to pluck the bacon from the pan and laid it out on the paper towel previously occupied by the tomato slices, and did the same with the sausages. 

Using the tongs he fished the boiled egg out of the water, watching swirling bacon grease emerge in the bubbling water as a result. And into the egg-cup it went. He used a pasta spoon to lift the poached eggs from the water out, and onto his own plate. And then just tipped the bacon and sausages onto said plate…

The toast popped and he grabbed it quickly, using a slab of butter he had out and a nearby knife to butter both slices, cutting them into thin strips. Then he used the knife to tap the boiled egg’s side until it cracked, and he could pull the top off and see the golden orange yolk, proud like the sun.

Perfect.

He was a  _ really  _ good cook. Hershel wasn’t proud of many things in his life for obvious reasons, but goddamn his cooking skills was one thing he could be proud of.

And so he picked up the plate with the heapings of mushrooms, the strips of buttered toast, the tomato slices, and the soft-boiled egg to take outside to Luke, cutlery pressed to the side.

As he approached once again, Luke had his hands in prayer position. It was only then Hershel noticed he had his cross necklace against his bare hairless toned chest.

_ Lord almighty. _

“-rebuke these thoughts in the name of the Lord, Jesus Christ. I give myself fully to You, so that You may reshape me-”

His eyes were opened as Hershel placed the plate down in front of him. He stared in silence for a second before abruptly finishing his prayer with a soft “amen”.

“I made your eggs the way you always liked them.” Hershel assured softly. “You always liked to dip bread into the yolk when you were young.”

“You remembered.” Luke whispered quietly.

“I notice you’re mixing prayer with meditation.” Hershel commented as Luke pulled the plate into his lap, getting the knife and fork to cut into a juicy tomato slice.

“I learned a bit of… karate before I was saved.” Luke explained. “I… I dunno, my pastor said it wasn’t good to do because that’s what some evil religions do, but… I just think about God and all is well.” A pang of guilt had appeared on his face, a sort of downcast look that had overridden the switch of a smile he’d had thanks to the surprise breakfast.

Hershel  _ would  _ be going to get his own plate but he leaned in to see something on Luke’s arm, and-

A deep gash. Several scars all over his arms, long and red. Some long and running down his forearms. 

“Luke…” Hershel whispered in disbelief as he realized.

“What?” Luke shoveled a whole slice into his mouth until Hershel took his arm to tilt it towards himself, confirming his worst suspicions.

“You’ve hurt yourself.” Hershel croaked.

Luke pulled his arm back and sighed. A slow blink, as if trying to mentally fumble for an explanation.

“Sometimes I just get angry that God hasn’t fixed me yet.” Luke whispered. 

“There’s absolutely nothing wrong with you.” Hershel spoke, letting go of his arm so he could actually go back to eating. Gaping at his self-harm scars wouldn’t make them any better.

“There really is.” Luke sighed. “I read the Bible myself a couple weeks ago, just a good scour through to remind myself.”

“Remind yourself of what, exactly?”

Luke turned his eyes to the sky, beginning to recite a verse. “Leviticus Chapter 20, Verse 13. If a man also lie with mankind, as he lieth-”

“I don’t think reading religious text to remind yourself-”

“-have committed an abomination: they shall surely be put to death. So I guess God hasn’t done his thing yet.”

Something clicked in Hershel’s mind.

“Does… does your religion  _ help  _ you in any way?”

“Of course it does.” Luke glanced back at him. “I made long lasting friends through church, we met up every Tuesday and brought something to eat and we’d all have fun.”

Hershel blinked slowly to think over what he’d learned. The self-harm marks, the community, his religion, his guilt over his morning meditations… 

“It sounds like you’re in an abusive relationship with your religion.” Hershel spoke his mind. 

It seems like something clicked in Luke’s brain as Hershel said that, but he continued-

“You’re sacrificing your own happiness to try and appease a God who you believe will fix you when you do enough of it.” Hershel spoke aloud as if trying to untangle the situation.

A breeze blew through the apple tree leaves. 

“I mean… Even then, look at all this.” Luke leaned back. “God made the sky, the trees, the grass…”

Honestly, Hershel needed to blot that out until he finished rambling. He’d heard this argument so many times from his religious peers and apologists in his life the words just blurred together into familiar. But it hurt to hear Luke rambling it out.

“-and he made you and me. We owe him everything.” 

“He did a bad job making me, then.” Hershel gave him a bit of a glance. 

“...and me.” Luke’s smile from his ramble faded as he realized that. 

“Well…” Hershel took a moment to think. “How’s your relationship with Clark at the moment?”

Luke opened his mouth to speak, before a look of sadness came to his eyes. “Well…” He scratched the back of his neck.

“It’s not good, is it?” Hershel frowned sympathetically.

“My mum passed away a couple years ago. Blood cancer.” Luke explained quietly, grief crossing his face.. “And then a couple months after she passed he married Alice and then they had Rose…”

“Rose?” Hershel interrupted.

“M… my half sister.” Luke murmured. “I talk to her on the phone sometimes. She’s still tiny.”

“Was Clark the one who plunged you into this… religion as self harm?” Hershel asked.

“No, that was Irene…” Luke thought and sighed. “She met me at school because we had the same English class in late high school and then she befriended me and wanted to take me to church, and I went along and we hit it off, and I kept going with her and took Jesus into my heart, and, yeah.”

“Here’s a thought experiment.” Hershel raised a finger to the air. “What if Clark, on the sheer virtue of being your father, demanded worship and constant praise and threatened eternal pain if you didn’t do so?”

“I know where you’re going with this metaphor.” Luke grumbled.

“You don’t owe any god your full devotion just because they may have created you.” Hershel smiled a bit. “And you don’t need to change yourself for them.”

“...If, If I keep praying, I’ll wake up fixed, and then things will be okay.” Luke sighed. “And then I can, I dunno, get remarried to a woman who I won’t disappoint because I can’t get hard looking at her.”

“I’ve gone through several phases in my life where I was praying to try and be fixed.” Hershel confided, looking up into the morning sky. “Late teenage years and… recently, embarrassingly enough. Nothing worked, unfortunately.”

Luke gave him a bit of a glance.

“I was hoping for God to change me. But… you don’t need to be changed at all. Because you aren’t broken.” Hershel reached to pat his bare, beautiful, toned, muscular back- tone it back.

Luke gave a slow blink, kind of unable to respond after that conversation.

“My breakfast is going to get cold, but I’m sorry for putting all that on you.” Hershel got to his feet. “I’ll just give you some space to think, but, please understand I do think highly of you.”

“You think highly of me from when I was 13 and gullible.” Luke grumbled.

“I’ve only just met this new Luke but he’s still as bright and exuberant as ever.” Hershel spoke warmly as he began to move back inside to go find his breakfast.

Luke turned his gaze from the man back to the garden he sat in. The blight on the leaves of each and every plant seemed incredibly noticeable in the early morning sunlight, the mold clutching to the plants dampening the sunlight that shone through the thin leaves. 

It occurred to him that he was surrounded by weeds.

What a tragic garden. 


	6. crushed

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TRIGGER WARNINGS:  
> None for this chapter!

Luke had only expected his visit to hold the professor accountable to be a day or two at most. Then he’d be making the drive to Liverpool to hopefully look for work, or Manchester, and he could subsist off the cash he had leftover from Irene and sell his old wedding ring to pay rent for a while until he had his income again. 

Buying a house would likely be out of reach for a while. And legally on paper, he was still the husband of Irene Triton. Divorce fees and letters and contracts would have to start coming eventually - and a brief part of him was thankful they hadn’t managed to conceive a child just before he left, or he’d be paying child support as well…

But it had been around two weeks since he’d arrived at the professor’s lonely old cottage and he still hadn’t made any moves to get out or leave.

Luke was still sleeping on that couch, and each morning he’d get up to do his morning prayers and he’d complete them to find a plate of cooked breakfast behind him, paired with a cup of tea, and Hershel inside a dusty study where he would lock himself up for the day.

Their contact was minimal. The professor had tried to ask him about his career yesterday only for him to snap into a rage out of nowhere, and from there they hadn’t spoken. 

Things were different now. But Luke still sat at that driftwood table in that garden after his morning prayers with his soft boiled egg and soldiers and fried mushrooms which the professor had cooked for him.

The professor was a good chef as well. Luke guessed he needed something more to do with his time. He couldn’t consist entirely on puzzles.

…

Even then, his title as the professor was now incorrect. He wasn’t a professor anymore. He was unemployed. Retired? Fired? Luke didn’t know. 

It occurred to him that he didn’t know anything about what’d happened to the professor in the past 18 years. He wasn’t wearing his hat anymore for one thing, He’d given up his life in the city which he adored for this small town, and…

_ What has he been doing for all these years? _

Luke sighed, getting up from his seat and deciding to carry his plate inside.

It was still early morning, and Hershel sat with his cup of tea - no plate of breakfast for himself. Just his cup of tea in his aging hands and a book in his lap. 

“Professor…” Luke spoke quietly, 

“Did you need something?” Hershel looked up from his book. 

“What- what have you been doing all these years?”

Hershel did not respond for several seconds, closing his book. “What I’ve been doing doesn’t matter, but-”

“No seriously.” Luke took a seat. “What on earth have you been up to?”

“I’m more concerned at how much of you seems to have just… changed, completely, since I met you.” Hershel admitted. “How long has it been since you did a puzzle, or, went down one of those long rabbit holes in a book?”

“I’m an adult, of course I’ve changed.” Luke folded his arms.

“I wouldn’t think you’d have gone down this path, I suppose.” Hershel got to his feet. “How about we go for a walk?”

“With you-?” Luke narrowed his eyes.

“Lashing out with the person who’s kindly let you stay in his house won’t help you.” Hershel chided him as he slowly got up from his seat, his knees making cracks as he did - and he moved to go to the stairs.

Luke was left in silence. A walk didn’t sound so bad. He hadn’t left the walls of this cottage since… since he’d got here. He sighed and grabbed his travel bag to rummage around for some clothes appropriate for taking a walk in.

\--

A short drive away and they’d come to a small forest park. A nature reserve apparently, not too far from the small town Hershel had taken to living in. A valley with a river flowing through it, Luke had heard. The sun was out today and the warmth had already begun to grow humid. He hoped the walk wouldn’t last too long today - if his suspicions were correct, it would only get hotter and then he might have to waste his water bottle tipping it over his head...

“This is a small walk I take every so often.” Hershel explained as he moved down the trail path, the sunlight dappling through the treetops onto a paved concrete path. They were surrounded by trees big and small, the forest floor covered in fresh grass shoots that had just come through, and the occasional patch of flowers where the sun could shine through.

“A small walk?” Luke asked as he kicked a little rock out of the way. “How long is it?”

“Only about twenty minutes, but there’s a gorgeous spot up ahead to stop at.” Hershel adjusted the backpack he was carrying on his back. “I just can’t do long walks anymore, I confess.”

Luke’s eyes rose to the canopy. The ground below was darkened by the leaves above, leaving little flecks of light that shifted as the branches swayed in the wind. A thought occurred to him - he’d gone on plenty of walks back in New York, not walks, proper hikes.

His church group liked to do “men’s getaways” as they called it. And Luke would attend each one - much to his wife’s annoyance - they went on lovely long hikes and wind up at some beautiful scenery. And then they would admire the beauty of God’s creations and pray. More of a pilgrimage than anything, and Luke on occasion could even tear his eyes away from the sweat soaked backs of his comrades. On occasion Pastor Joseph would come and then it got especially hard.

Luke was snapped back to reality as Hershel had seemingly stopped. The path was now flanked by two large walls of natural clay and dirt with vines and various plants crawling up from it. 

“Come look at this, Luke.” Hershel ushered him over.

“Mm?” Luke stopped right by his side to try and see what he was looking at. A perfectly smooth concave opening in the side, exposing pure orange clay, fresh and untouched.

“There’s a puzzle here.” Hershel spoke softly as he squished his fingers into the soft substance, pulling them away and finding little chunks of clay stuck to his fingertips. 

A puzzle.

Luke hadn’t thought about that in a long time, but he felt a tiny childlike bit of wonder rise from his stomach.

“Is it… meant to be a puzzle?” Luke murmured, glancing to the side as Hershel pondered over the shape of the exposed clay. It seemed rather scoop-like somehow, a concave pit in the clay.

“Puzzles are everywhere if you know where to look - you could make anything a puzzle if you tried.” Hershel dusted his hands off on his coat. “You used to be able to make puzzles out of the leaves on the ground while it was raining.”

Luke took a moment to recall a puzzle he’d come up with to do with some buckets tilted on their sides, a park, a rainstorm, and the trees planted in little dirt boxes on the sidewalk. His eyes shone for a moment as he remembered that particular puzzle.

“The puzzle here is…” Hershel spoke deep in thought. “Was this bit of clay exposed by some man-made device, like a digger, or was it natural?”

And for a moment Luke wondered if he was bothered trying to solve a random puzzle Layton had come up with on the spot. 

Well. Yes. He  _ was  _ bothered to solve this.

And so Luke began to inspect his surroundings, not noticing Hershel taking a few steps back to let him investigate. The concrete path had some clay washed over it.

“So… if it were man-made or dug out by a digger…” Luke thought aloud… “There would be tracks from the vehicle still around, judging by how clean the cut is.”

“You’re on the right  _ track! _ ” Hershel spoke up, a wide smile spreading across his face. Luke gave him a bit of a look for that pun.

“Then…” Luke’s eyes went up to the foliage clinging to the side of the cliff face, noticing it was all mossy. And the mounds of clay that had been washed down- “I’ve got it!”

“What’s your answer, my boy?” 

“This was entirely natural! Water dripping down from above would have slowly carved out this hole in the clay!” Luke suddenly took a stance to point directly at it - until he realized what he was doing and eased his posture.

Hershel began to clap. “Bravo. Correct.”

“Wait- how’d you know?” Luke looked over, mildly confused.

“I pass through here regularly, so I’ve seen it slowly being pushed away.” Hershel explained, before a sympathetic look came to his face. “And I must confess, it’s good to see you acting like  _ you  _ again.”

“Wasn’t I acting like  _ me  _ before?”

“Not particularly.” Hershel gave a nod, turning heel and beginning to continue walking. “If you spot or come up with any puzzles, I’m too happy to solve them.”

Luke glanced back at that clay concave opening and tried to remember the last time he’d solved a puzzle like that. His late teen years, perhaps, just before he’d met Irene. Something had happened to him once he’d met her, it occurred to him. Something that made him the man he was today.

_ Was  _ this who he was? Church-going good Christian married Luke Triton?

Well. He wasn’t exactly married anymore. Christian, he was questioning, but…

Luke noticed Hershel was getting a bit ahead and decided to start jogging to catch up with him.

He returned to normal pace walking just behind Hershel, watching the man break his regular stride to seemingly step over a thick crack on the path. The professor had always been a paranoid man and it occurred to him living alone in a tiny cottage in almost total isolation wasn’t much help for him there.

“Wait.” Luke suddenly spoke aloud. “I’ve got a puzzle.”

“Oh? Do tell.” Hershel glanced over his shoulder for a brief moment.

“Um…” Luke took a moment to try to figure out the best way to tell it. “On Mars, three aliens get on a bus at the mall. Then at the train station, four aliens get off. How is this possible?”

“Oh. That has many possible answers.” Hershel thought aloud. “There’s quite a few possibilities there.”

“Are there?”

“Firstly, could one of the aliens have undergone mitosis of some sort while on the bus?” Hershel spoke aloud, making a splitting gesture with his hands as he walked. “We don’t know much about these aliens.”

Luke hadn’t considered that.

“Or, the answer could be zero. Because there are no aliens on Mars. Or it could be zero again, because there are no buses on Mars either.” Hershel rambled and chuckled to himself.

“I thought the Mars thing was a nice touch.” Luke gave a little defeated laugh. “The answer was um, the bus driver also got off.”

“Ah, I hadn’t even considered that.” Hershel tapped his chin thoughtfully. “You’ll get the hang of puzzle making again, I guarantee it.”

Luke tried to remember any puzzles he’d made in his youth. Um, there was one with apples in baskets… And another with pancakes, he thought? Oh, one he’d made with his train set! Unfortunately he found himself unable to recall any of the actual puzzle, rather just the objects he’d used…

Before Luke could remember any of those puzzles, they came to a small clearing with a picnic table. The sun shone down, a wide circle of grass and sunlight carved out from the dark trees. Hershel exhaled and moved over to the table, taking a seat. There were a couple of signs pointing into the clearing with different colours to indicate different trails. There was also a small dirty water fountain right by the sign, seemingly leaking a little bit... Luke followed and decided to sit down to rest his legs - his yoga kept him flexible but he wasn’t equipped for walks like these. It had been a while since the last church hike...

“Is this that place you were talking about?”

“Indeed.” Hershel gave a nod, shutting his eyes to just enjoy the sunlight as he took a deep breath through his nose.

“It’s… just a small clearing.” Luke’s eyes went down to an ant on the picnic table as well as the chipped green paint.

“You’ll learn to appreciate these kinds of things when you get to my age.” Hershel took his backpack off to unzip it, pulling out a small lunchbox packed with sandwiches. “Take as many as you’d like.”

Luke looked between Hershel’s eyes and the lunchbox which Hershel clicked open. The tupperware container had fogged up from a small ice pack at the bottom to keep the sandwiches cool, and Luke gingerly took two, both wrapped lovingly and neatly in gladwrap. Just… fresh egg salad sandwiches. Oh. His favourite. He always thought people were unfair to them, you just had to eat them quickly so the egg wouldn’t fall out...

He eagerly unwrapped them and watched Hershel take one of his own, until a look came over Luke’s face.

“What  _ did  _ you mean by it’s good to see me acting like me again, anyway?” Luke took a bite from his sandwich, enjoying just how cold it was in comparison to the humid heat out here. 

“Since the moment you arrived at my front door, you haven’t been acting authentically, I’d say.” Hershel explained. “Everything you’ve been doing seems to be performative.”

“I think you might just have an image of me from when I was 13 stuck in your head that won’t budge.” Luke spoke through a mouthful. Well, that was one thing he hadn’t changed on...

“If you’re really so incredibly angry at me for ruining your marriage - why did you go through the effort to seek me out in person rather than just writing an angry letter?” Hershel asked. A rhetorical question, it seemed. “And why are you still here?”

…

Luke’s mind did not give him any answers. Just a silence. Mentally and verbally.

“If I were so angry at someone to track them down, I do not think I would be able to stand their presence. Yet you’ve been able to sleep in my house for a week with no trouble, even if you do lash out.” Hershel rambled thoughtfully. 

“I dunno, I guess I’d like you to suffer with my presence.” Luke mumbled. He couldn’t really work up that anger today after that conversation they’d had yesterday.

“I suspect you might’ve pushed everything about yourself down for a long long time to appease other people.” Hershel suggested. “Your love of puzzles, your intellectual curiosity, the people you love…”

“I would’ve been doing it for a long long time, then.” Luke looked over to the side, avoiding eye-contact.

“When was the last time you were truly happy?” Hershel decided to make direct eye-contact with him. A question he wanted an answer to.

Luke had to think about it. He looked back over the years. He could admit now he was never happy in his marriage. Perhaps he’d been friends with Irene, but there was a total lack of romantic connection. In the same breath that his faith comforted him, it told him he was broken. His career seesawed between moderate success and total failure. His struggles in university and the  _ incident _ with his English teacher in high school. He kept working his way back.

“The last time I was happy was…” Luke trailed off. “When I was 13.”

“I thought so.” Hershel’s eyes became sympathetic. 

“I have a proposition to make.”

“What is it?” 

“You may stay here as long as you’d like.” Hershel smiled faintly. “You won’t need to work and I can support you as long as you need.”

Luke slowly blinked. That was a useful proposition-

“I have plenty of money saved away, so there’s no need to worry.” Hershel assured. 

And Luke took a moment, listening to the cicadas and feeling the thrum of his heartbeat in his ears. 

“I’ll take it.” Luke’s eyes rose. 

“Under the condition you stop being so angry all the time.” Hershel suddenly raised a finger, adding that out of nowhere.

His eyes narrowed for a moment before he sighed, shaking his head. “I’ll try to be less... angry, then. For you.”


	7. community

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TRIGGER WARNINGS:  
> Alcohol  
> Pray the Gay Away  
> Sexual Harassment

Luke stared at himself in the mirror, wishing Irene had packed his bags a bit better. He barely had any clothes in this bag besides pyjamas, a couple shirts, a single pair of jeans, and a jacket. Barely his Sunday best. 

The bathroom light flickered and Luke wondered if this cottage had been maintained. The garden was certainly not maintained in the slightest, but he couldn’t say much for the rest of the house. 

He ran a comb through his hair and took a moment to inspect it. It was a beautiful intricate wooden comb from Harrods back in London from the looks of it. His eyes caught on his own watch and he realized the time - church would be beginning very soon. Hershel would probably let him borrow the Laytonmobile mk2.

Luke went to the door and opened it, only to see Hershel standing on the other side of the door, holding a cooked breakfast. Just like a couple days ago, heaped high with a mound of fried eggs - not his favourite, but he’d take it - and some French toast, drenched in maple syrup, and some mushrooms on the side.

“Good morning.” Hershel greeted, holding the plate out with a warm genuine smile. “I made you breakfast again.”

“Professor.” Luke mumbled, fiddling with his collar. “Car keys. I’m going to church.”

“Ah, but I put so much effort into making this for you.” Hershel’s expression suddenly dampened. “That’s fine, I can-”

“No, no, no, I’ll eat it, then.” Luke slowly took the plate. “I can attend… I can attend a later service, I guess.”

“Maybe you could tell me about what kind of spiritual guidance you were hoping to hear at church.” Hershel slowly moved into the kitchen with Luke trailing him with that heaped plate of cooked breakfast. “Spiritual guidance after… your divorce, I suppose?”

Luke took a seat and stared down at the eggs, counting at least 4 yolks. His eyes glimmered over them for a moment as he lifted one egg with a fork. This actually looked better than he thought it was originally. But his expression faltered as he was reminded of his ongoing divorce. Assuming he wasn’t just going to get it done entirely over letters and cash sent for legal fees...

“I could talk to the pastor there…” Luke murmured.

“I don’t think he’d be very supportive of… what’s happened.” Hershel admitted softly as he leaned back into his chair. Luke noticed Hershel was just sitting and did not have his own plate of breakfast.

“Huh?”

“Divorce isn’t looked upon favourably.” Hershel reminded him quietly. “He may just tell you to return home and apologize and continue trying to change your ways.”

Luke blinked to think that over, a grimace coming to his face.

“An entirely new church formed purely so the king could get a divorce, and yet they still expect their adherents to stay in their miserable marriages.” Hershel murmured. “A shame.”

“Do you think he’d… understand why it went wrong?” Luke whispered, cutting into the white of a fried egg. 

“I think a pastor is looking for some drastic horrible incident when they want to know why a divorce happened.” Hershel pointed out. “There… there was none of the sort, was there?”

“Just… It was loveless from the start.” Luke poked his fork into the yolk of an egg, watching the gold liquid spill from the membrane. “And our sex was miserable. No horrible incidents, no fighting, just… misery.”

“I think in that situation they’d just advise you to return to her with some flowers and chocolate and pray.” Hershel spoke sympathetically. “Which clearly won’t work.”

“I- I can just… go to church, and not tell anyone about it.” Luke mumbled. “I can find a group and forget about it.”

“To be fully truthful…” Hershel put a hand on Luke’s shoulder, expecting the man to recoil or crumple, but he didn’t. He just stared down at his plate as he began to cut into the lovingly cooked french toast. “I think it would be best if you didn’t attend church for a while.”

Luke gave him a glance until his eyes snagged on the deep gashes on his forearm. Perhaps… perhaps…

“Instead of going… you could try to tell me what you actually like about your faith.” Hershel made a compromise. “You mentioned your community, didn’t you?”

“Mhmm.” Luke nodded.

“Tell me about a time you remember there.” 

\--

_ Luke gave a warm smile and a nod as he was ushered into the foyer. Irene was at his side, carrying a plate of caramel slice she’d spent all day making today. Luke still smelled of grease from work today, his hair appearing significantly more voluminous than this morning. He was wearing a casual button-up shirt and jeans paired with a blue, nothing too fancy. This was a casual environment. _

_ He was 26. Most of the people here were his age, this was the young married couples meet-up connect group. No one over 35, then they’d get moved to the older group. The church had organized this group and he and Irene had been coming here since they’d been married. As they entered the living room, Luke’s eyes went over the dining table. _

_ A stack of plates, the table covered with all sorts of tasty dishes. Salads, an entire basket of bread rolls, a heaping plate of sausages, a bowl of trifle, oh, someone brought an entire bag of takeout. Lemon chicken, fried rice, satay, wontons, some fries wrapped in newspapers… He felt his mouth water. _

_ “Don’t eat too much, sweetheart.” Irene lightly patted her husband’s back with a teasing smile. “Save some for the rest of us.” _

_ “Oh, yes.” Luke straightened his tie. As Irene placed the caramel slice down on an empty space on the table, he couldn’t help but lean over to pluck a piece from the plate. His eyes then went over to Irene to ask for permission. _

_ “You get first bite.” Irene assured him before giving him a bit of a wink. The wink just reminded him it was Wednesday tomorrow, nausea panging in his stomach. Luke stood up straight again to pop the slice in his mouth, feeling the chocolate instantly melt in his mouth. Oh, that was good. _

_ Irene gave a giggle until she spun around to the living room. The skirt went down just below her knees, but as she twirled Luke briefly wished he could wear something like that. Sometimes he’d have worn women’s clothing in his youth. Those days were behind him. _

_ Luke’s eyes grazed over the table once again before they drifted in the direction of the living room. 11 people sitting on sofas and couches around a CRT television - oooh, it was a new one. Tonight the Yankees were going to be playing against the Cubs. He reached down to grab another piece of slice before his back was suddenly slapped by someone. _

_ “HEYYYYY! LUKE!” _

_ “Elijah-” Luke was yanked by the back of his shirt and came face to face with the taller grinning man. He was a year younger than him, yet he stood a whole foot and a half taller than him. Luke stood at a tiny 4'10 and Elijah didn’t seem to understand he didn’t like being manhandled. He had blond hair and faint stubble, wearing a casual t-shirt and jorts. _

_ “Y’had any luck yet?” Elijah grinned as he let go of the poor man, punching his shoulder. _

_ “...Luck?” Luke blinked. _

_ “Y’know.” Elijah winked and Luke felt his stomach turn. “My wife’s due in a week. How about yours?” _

_ “I-- She isn’t pregnant.” Luke felt the space between them close suddenly. He didn’t want to discuss this. _

_ “Look, look, Luke, I’m an expert. Let me give you some tips.” Elijah whispered. “Try holding ‘er legs up, get it all in there. Trust me, I’ve got 3 kids and another on the way.” _

_ “Stop.” Luke narrowed his eyes, trying to struggle free from his grasp. “I didn’t ask to hear this.” _

_ “Alright, sorry, dude, I’m just giving you advice.” Elijah stepped back. Luke decided to go hide by sitting next to Irene without another word. Irene elbowed him a little. _

_ It was true people kept asking Luke about his wife not being pregnant. The church was seemingly kept alive by a constant stream of children from its members and god he didn’t know what was going wrong between he and Irene. Perhaps the fact he didn’t enjoy their sex and he had an extremely difficult time getting erect for her. Even in that lingerie she bought, it didn’t do anything for him.  _

_ Luke shook a deep breath. _

_ “Sweetheart, would you mind if I bring up your issue in prayer today?” Irene asked, putting a hand on his knee.  _

_ “Sure, go ahead.” Luke mumbled. “People keep asking anyway.” _

_ Zion suddenly tossed Luke a beer who caught it in surprise, Irene giggling at his sudden shock. Zion’s wife, Leah, chuckled as she opened a bag of potato chips for the game. Elijah went to sit with his wife, Rachel, wearing a modest dress sitting daintily on a chair with an arm wrapped around her belly. Luke’s ears picked up on little feet running upstairs. It occurred to him once again that he and Irene were the only couple here without kids.  _

_ Oh, lord. No matter how much Luke tried he never really felt welcome here. He felt like a piece of paper added to an existing drawing and taped on. His eyes went to Noah and Rebecca who were just quietly chatting with each other.  _

_ For one thing, everyone here in this room excluding himself had a tear-jerking story about how they were born and raised in the church to love their lord and saviour Jesus Christ from age 2. His tear-jerking story was his now wife and highschool sweetheart had invited him to church while he was boarding in his private school and now here he was, a bonafide servant of The Lord.  _

_ Luke cracked open the beer to drink deeply. He tended to shut his mental faculties off a bit easier when he could drink - and honestly, sometimes they came through a bit too strong when he was trying to just accept The Lord’s Word. Leftover from his time with piece of shit useless shit fuck cunt hole pedophile Professor Layton motherfucker _

_ Nope. He wasn’t thinking about him tonight. The professor had made him think too much. The other day, Pastor Joseph had tilted Luke’s face up with one calloused hand under his chin and told him that sometimes it was best to just shut your brain off and let the Holy Spirit flow through you- _

_ “Lord, please remove these thoughts from my head.” Luke slowly set his beer down and whispered under his breath. Irene patted his shoulder lightly. “I rebuke them in the name of the Lord, Amen.” _

_ Thankfully the chatter was too high for anyone to hear his prayer, or ask what it was about.  _

_ “You’ll get through this, Luke.” Irene whispered to him. “We can keep praying and it’ll all be fine soon.” _

_ “Thank you.” Luke plucked the beer from the table again to take a deep swig. Only issue with alcohol shutting off his mental faculties is he tended to start thinking about the various handsome men in his life. One of the regulars at his restaurant sure was handsome. An older rich businessman who would fork over $20 each Sunday to get a veggie burger and often gave compliments directly to the chef- _

_ He wasn’t bothered praying aloud again. He’d already done that just a couple seconds ago - and then if Irene heard him she’d think something was up and then he might get pulled out by the ear to be yelled at about how he wasn’t trying hard enough to get over his SSA.  _

_ He leaned his head on Irene’s shoulder and sighed as the game started. Everyone was almost immediately transfixed. Dinner would be during half-time, He’d never really understood watching sport - perhaps it was patriotism? Perhaps it was the fact he’d never identified living with any of the cities he’d lived in during his time in America. London was his home at heart. _

_ Misthallery too, maybe. He missed it a bit.  _

_ “Oh, Luke, I didn’t know you cared.” Irene gave a little purr. Luke felt his stomach turn again. But maybe he was more accepted here- _

_ Someone wolf whistled at him and Irene. Luke slowly sat up in discomfort. He didn’t know why everyone was so set on them having children but a part of him wondered if there was an issue on his end. Was his- was he not producing sperm? Was Irene infertile? He quietly hoped either was true because he did  _ not  _ want children… Not with Irene, at least. He’d heard from his dad whining down the phone line about how hard it was to take care of his newborn infant half-sister enough to know he didn’t want them.  _

_ Luke tried to lose himself in the game on the small TV, as suddenly everyone around him erupted into cheer. He blinked and jolted at the sudden screaming from his peers. He hated loud noises and he especially hated it when they were sudden.  _

_ He took another swig to finish his beer and grabbed another one. Alcohol helped numb the night and sometimes he might even be able to chat it up with some other people. He was rather in control of himself while drunk, thankfully. _

_ The first half of the game was relatively boring, although Luke was able to talk quietly with Irene about the cat he’d seen the other day outside the restaurant. He managed to drunkenly ramble until the game took a break, to which he drunkenly rambled about his job to Liam. He’d managed to eat a reasonable portion of food as well. _

_ And then the game continued and eventually finished. The Cubs won but the group began to move into the religious discussion segment of the night. They were presently having a discussion on various Satanic symbols in children’s TV shows. Only a couple months ago had a preschool in Los Angeles been found out to be engaging in Satanic sex abuse and sodomisation - you couldn’t be too careful. Irene had told them to not discuss the incident around Luke. _

_ “Now, you see.” Noah carefully turned the pages of the Bible. “Satanic powers are being welcomed into the world through our very television sets.”  _

_ Rachel cringed, the room having been silenced. _

_ “And comic books, too.” Noah glanced around to Adam in the corner. Adam looked down into his hands. “All those ‘psy kick’ powers you read about?” _

_ Irene briefly side-eyed Luke. Irene knew about his strange power to talk to animals - such abilities were not absolutely unheard of, but within recent years Luke had learned they had come right from Satan. Including his. No wonder he was gay. No, not gay, just suffering SSA.  _

_ “Satan.” Noah reminded them.  _

_ Luke did not respond. _

_ And then suddenly Noah’s expression brightened. “Anyway. Before we begin our prayers… Do we have anything that needs to be prayed over?” _

_ “I’d like my delivery to be swift.” Rachel raised her hand, one hand still wrapped over her stomach. The group laughed. _

_ “I’d like my father to stop calling me about my sister.” Luke spoke up before bitterly laughing. They’d all heard about his mother’s passing last year and his father’s lightning-quick remarriage. Another laugh went up around the group. _

_ Irene had her hands on her knees before she raised her hand. _

_ “Irene?” Noah nodded at her. _

_ “My husband has given me permission to discuss this with you, so…” Irene placed her hand in a fist over her chest, shutting her eyes and sighing. “We’ve been having troubles. He is homosexual.” _

_ Luke felt the room fall fucking silent. No laughter. No nothing. Just… eyes. _

_ Eyes. _

_ “We’re doing our best.” Irene continued to speak. “Luke is a wonderful man and he’s been working so hard to get past his problem. But a prayer would be helpful.” _

_ “I-- Irene…” Her name slipped from Luke’s lips, his throat hoarse.  _

_ “Well then.” Noah put his hands together. “Would you mind if we all put our hands on Luke to pray for him?” _

_ Luke was pulled to his feet by Irene, both her hands going to his back. Like clockwork the others followed to place his hands on him. He hadn’t been asked. He tried to speak but his throat felt constricted. _

_ “I’ll lead us in prayer.” Noah spoke up. Luke tried to breathe but he suddenly couldn’t. _

_ Dear Lord, _

_ Lead this poor man from his sins. We bring Luke Triton before you and ask you to purge his sinful urges and wash his soul with your blood, oh Lord. Remove his homosexuality and free him from his urges. _

_ In the holy name of Jesus Christ, _

_ Amen. _

\--

Hershel watched Luke laying back on the sofa, The younger man had recounted a harrowing experience and by now his half eaten plate of breakfast was cold. And that was asking him to recount a positive experience. Had he just forgotten he was supposed to tell him a good time? Luke was breathing shakily just recounting it.

“I’m truly sorry that happened to you.” Hershel whispered.   
  
“I’ll… I’ll just go to the evening servi-” Luke tried to speak up only to interrupt himself once he saw the man raising his finger.

“I suggested earlier you should avoid church for a while.” Hershel told him, a firm tone in his voice. “Your faith should be strong enough to survive not attending church for a while.”

“You’re right.” Luke murmured. 

“Irene shouldn’t have done that, though. She violated your trust.” Hershel assured. “And you had to hide so much of yourself…”

“I think I pushed myself in a dark room to… make it through.” Luke whispered. 

“Even then. They would’ve thought you’re monstrous for just being who you are, from… being gay to the fact you can talk to animals.” Hershel spoke in his softest voice, until a certain sweetness leaked in. “I think that makes you deeply special. To me, at least.”

Luke sat up slowly, hugging his knees to his chest. “Thank you.” He whispered. “As for…”   
  
“Why you pushed yourself into that dark room for all those years?” Hershel’s eyes showed a deep understanding.

“It was… it was just, you know.” Luke felt vulnerable at this moment. “I was different to everyone and I don’t really have anything that makes me interesting.”

“You’re plenty interesting, Luke.” Hershel pointed out.

“I dunno, you’ve got to walk a thin line between ‘interesting’ and ‘weird’.” Luke mumbled. “And… people don’t relate to being in big mysteries and being gentlemanly and… you know.” He gave him a look, clearly referencing their relationship all those years back.

“I can understand, I think.” Hershel gave a nod. “I’m deeply sorry.”

“I think I’d be messed up anyway.” Luke murmured. “I guess I got thrown into a new environment and didn’t know how to cope so I just… pushed it all down.”

“I’m glad you’ve come to a place where you can be you, then.” Hershel spoke with a fond tone. A twitch of a smile on his face.

“...Yeah, me too.” Luke nodded.


	8. a good day

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TRIGGER WARNINGS:  
> Satanic Panic

Hershel had insisted on coming to the library. Luke had wanted to get some new books and check any job listing posted there - in his years he’d learned that libraries not only loaned books, they had noticeboards, small events, computers free for use, the whole deal. The carpet was old and the whole room had a musty smell, but it reminded him of his university study hall.

Oh, he’d spent many nights there researching. He had taken a culinary course and unfortunately it required much more theory work than he’d expected. 

“How about you go to the nonfiction section?” Hershel suggested as he moved towards the younger man. “Perhaps you could find some books on, ah, long distance… divorces and how to navigate them.”

“Oh, I’d almost forgotten…” Luke scratched his head. He was wearing that long sleeved white shirt again. “About the divorce, I mean.”

“You’ve been doing well.” Hershel gave a little nod. “I knew I didn’t cope well with… well, previous separations.”

“Like with Claire, yeah, I guess.” Luke mumbled. “God, yeah, you didn’t cope.”

“Perhaps you could also find some books on meditation?” Hershel suggested once more.

“I think I could use that to free myself from… religion, yeah.” Luke agreed, getting a pat on the back as he moved towards the adult nonfiction section. Job listings could wait. 

He hadn’t exactly memorized the Dewey Decimal System, and there were no signs to help him, but he just browsed the shelves from 000. 

Immediately he found books about UFOs. Not what he was looking for. All sorts of books, although he turned his nose up a couple times upon seeing various hardcovers written by some authors he recognized, and not for the right reasons. There was one conspiracy theorist guy in his church who started kicking up dust about  _ The Mark of the Beast  _ or vague prophecies in Revelations almost every Sunday - and Luke had been recommended a couple of books from these authors.

Moving on. Luke skimmed past the philosophy section, thinking about how he’d already have heard these insights from the birds that liked to debate outside his window every morning, and to the religion section. 

Perhaps this was a mistake. His eyes grazed over the various book titles, frowning.

_ EASTERN SPIRITUALITY AND SATANISM _

_ Is God Good? _

_ The Bible And Homosexuality _

_ GOD AND YOUR MARRIAGE _

Most of the authors had American sounding names. Luke didn’t want to read any of these. 

_ MEDITATION AND DEMONS _

He exhaled and moved to the side until he found a book that wasn’t entirely Satanic Panic propaganda. His eyes caught on the spine of a different book.

_ SIMPLE MEDITATION AND YOGA _

Better. Luke pulled it off the shelf and turned it over.

_ Try these techniques of meditation and yoga poses for amazing benefits! Dr. Henry Pannen teaches the proven science and secular applications of mindfulness. _

Looking good! He tucked it under his arm and decided to look for the job listings towards a noticeboard he had spotted earlier. Job listings in a small town seem like they’d be posted here. As he went close to inspect it…

Babysitting notices, lawn mowing, people putting their… contact details up, a local competition… There were a couple of jobs, but, um… It looked like most of the listings had been stripped bare. Just empty.

Looked like no one had put anything up recently. Luke sighed lightly, moving to the fiction section. He could pick up a good mystery novel. Or an erotica novel. Those tended to be easier to hide from Irene than porn magazines, and it would… star male characters who Luke could picture to look however he wanted.

Even if the men were having sex with women. Luke could project himself onto the woman and pretend he was wanted by some handsome older man who wasn’t going to tell him he was a sinner. It wasn’t  _ desirable  _ to seek out heterosexual erotica, but better than nothing. 

Luke moved through the romance section, his eyes looking for a certain heart symbol stamped to the side of the spine to denote erotica. It then occurred to him that was the system used at the library back home. Not here. Nevermind. 

He didn’t exactly want to sit in Hershel Layton’s house with erotica.

Luke moved out of the aisle to go down the drama aisle, until he spotted Hershel with a whole pile of books in his hands. 

“Ah, Luke.” Hershel smiled as he noticed him, whispering softly. “I can hold your books if you’d like.”

Luke decided to put the book on Hershel’s stack, nodding. “The… job listing board was empty.”

“Oh dear. That’s a shame.” Hershel’s expression turned sympathetic. “Completely empty? Surely not.”

“Not completely, but nothing for, you know, a 30 year old with a culinary degree…”

“You have a  _ culinary degree? _ ” Hershel raised an eyebrow.

“I absolutely do.” Luke nodded. “I, well, it’s still in… New York.”

“Another thing you’ll have to sort out.” Hershel smiled weakly. “Perhaps I’ll have to get you to cook me something.”

“Oh!” Luke’s eyes lit up, snapping his fingers. “That’s a great idea. I could make some of the recipes I made for my restaurant-”

“You didn’t tell me you’d been running a restaurant!”

“Oh my gosh.” Luke realized, gasping. “I  _ need  _ to make you something.”

“Perhaps you could cook dinner, then.” Hershel offered. “If you could write me up a shopping list I could go to the supermarket.”

“I could just pick it up myself, no worries.”

“No, no, I insist.” Hershel patted his shoulder. “I know what brands are the best quality over here.”

“Well, that’s very nice of you.” Luke thanked him. 

“I can get these books out and I’ll meet you back by the Laytonmobile Mark 2.” Hershel told him. “Alright?”

“Alright.” Luke decided, And he began to move out from the library, opening the large wooden carved door and stepping out into the beautiful warm sunlight. Some beautiful oak trees swayed in the breeze. He sighed and inhaled the fresh air, moving down to the Laytonmobile Mark 2 and leaning against the side. 

He could hear a cicada in the distance. Just one. 

“Ah.” Luke shut his eyes. He had so many recipes to make. A deep fried patty of mushrooms, sliced tomatoes, lettuce, beetroot, melted cheese, more melted cheese… He even had lovely handmade fries at the restaurant. Or perhaps Hershel may not appreciate that sort of thing, he wondered. Homemade pasta? He could revisit those old recipes he never got a chance to do at the restaurant.

It had been too long since he’d eaten his own meals. Irene had been a bit touchy about him cooking himself his own meals, saying he needed to ‘watch his weight’ because apparently his ‘total lack of muscle wasn’t doing him any favours’. 

She _ had  _ married him knowing he had one hell of an appetite. On their dinner dates (chaperoned by her father) he would order himself two main meals and often one for her father to try and make an impression. In retrospect he should have noticed Irene was treating it like a date rather than just a friendly outing… 

Luke blinked slowly and pushed his fingers into his eyes as he realized how  _ obvious  _ it was that she was trying to make romantic advances. He really  _ was  _ gay.

If there was something he wasn’t going to do again it was get married. That was one hell of a mistake. At least he was away from it.

With that, Hershel emerged from the library with a tote bag of books in hand. He carefully made his way down the steps, moving towards the car with a warm smile. The sun had given him a brighter mood.

“So… would you mind writing me up a list of the items you need from the supermarket?” Hershel asked as he moved around to unlock the car. Once the passenger seat unlocked, Luke opened the door to slide inside onto the beige leather seats. The inside of the Laytonmobile Mark 2 had a very 60s aesthetic - a refined curved dash and an old stereo. Luke found his heart lift at the neat refined sheen.

“Will do-” Luke was passed a spiral notepad, and a familiar fountain pen. He smiled at the familiar emerald sheen and began to write on the cheap paper. Ricotta, mushrooms, broccoli, some thick butter, spinach, flour...

His eyes moved up as he noticed Hershel was driving away from the town, back the way they’d come from the cottage. 

“I was thinking I’d-”

“You can relax at home. The supermarket is never a fun affair, is it? You always used to hate it.” Hershel chuckled.

“You’re absolutely right.” Luke agreed… Even as an adult he tended to want to throw whatever caught his eye in the trolley on the off occasion he came with Irene who usually did the grocery shopping. And sometimes he’d drop in some cookies and then got his ear chewed off by Irene. 

He managed to write all of the ingredients down and ripped the sheet of paper off to pass to Hershel. “Here.”

“Thank you.” Hershel nodded and tucked it on the dashboard. Luke’s eyes went to the window at the sprawling paddocks and occasional cottages dotting the flat landscapes.

It was a pretty place. He had never been one for the country, but…

It didn’t take long for Hershel to pull into the driveway of his cottage. Luke opened the door and grabbed the tote bag, closing the door with a quiet “see you” as Hershel pulled out again to go to the supermarket.

It would’ve probably cost him less gas to just go to the supermarket together. Yet he expended the time to drop him off so he could sit and read rather than suffer through searching the aisles. Rather polite of him.

Luke moved to the door, reaching for the key slot to find a little puzzle lock rather than a traditional keyhole. Oh well. He solved it rather quickly - he’d been trying a couple old puzzles recently - and pushed the door open to enter the cottage. 

He reached inside the totebag - a black board of thin plastic at the bottom to give the bag some sort of shape - and pulled out his small book on meditation, letting the rest of the bag slide off his arm so he could start at page 1 of the book.

Out to the garden he went. Luke’s eyes went up to the trees and the empty flowerbeds. Hershel really needed to weed the garden. In fact it seemed like more weeds had appeared since last time he’d been out here. He went to sit on the driftwood chair as he opened the book properly.

He flipped past the first few pages, his eyes briefly catching the contents page. Yoga exercises, meditation tips, diagrams… Luke decided to start with the introduction. 

_ Dear Reader, _

_ If you’ve picked up this book, congratulations! You’re on your way to learning how meditation and yoga can change your life for the better.  _

Luke sure hoped so. He turned the page and spotted a diagram of various meditation poses. The benefits of the traditional legs crossed over the other, other helpful poses, what to do, what to think about, wind down techniques… 

Keeping one’s mind clear of all thoughts and pushing them out to attain a sort of peace. Luke briefly thought Hershel could have used something like that as he turned the page again. But this was for helping himself. 

_ Although meditation and yoga has been derived from a religious practice, we find when divorced from any sort of religious or spiritual context it still provides the same effects. _

He could work with that.


	9. amore, amore

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TRIGGER WARNINGS:  
> None for this chapter

Luke honestly couldn’t remember the last time he’d been so at peace while cooking. At his restaurant he was constantly surrounded by the smell of grease and short swift deadlines, beeping of fryers and the manager shouting at the wait staff. He didn’t have much control over that, unfortunately.

Hershel miraculously had a pasta maker, and Luke was feeding through sheets of his homemade pasta to make it thin enough to cut into pieces. He had some spinach and ricotta mixed together for the filling, and the sauce simmering in a frying pan on the stove.

It was incredibly relaxing, and he could see the twilight settling in outside the window. He couldn’t imagine putting this much effort into making something for Irene.

She cooked quite a lot, but usually soups or things she could put in the slow cooker so she could return to painting or reading. Homemade pasta was maybe going a  _ biiiit  _ out of his way.

He had Hershel setting the outside table, hopefully.

Once he was done with the pasta, he set it to boil and grabbed two plates. The pasta was fresh and thin, so it wouldn’t take very long to cook.

Grabbing some dinner plates from a hutch, Luke set them out and went back to stirring the sauce he’d made. Broccoli and garlic sage sauce, drenched in butter. He  _ hoped  _ it wasn’t too heavy. It occurred to him he was maybe getting to an age where he had to worry about cholesterol soon, and Hershel even more so. 

He’d have to see if Hershel liked it. 

Carrying the plates into the twilight, he noticed Hershel had taken the time to carefully align cutlery and napkins. Setting the plates down and making silent eye contact with the man as he sat down, he hoped for some sort of approval. 

“What’s this you’ve made?” Hershel sat down slowly and pulled the chair in, smiling warmly in interest. “I don’t remember having ravioli in the pantry.”

“I made it by hand. It’s spinach and ricotta, and the sauce is broccoli and sage.” Luke explained, picking up the cutlery. He intended to get stuck right into his hard work, but he hesitated. He was forgetting something. Oh, that’s right.

He usually said grace over every meal, even at restaurants or gatherings. At his own restaurant in the breakroom, as well. 

“If you’d like, Luke, before we eat, we could both say one thing we’re thankful for today.” Hershel offered. “How does that sound?”

“Well, alright.” Luke hesitated to speak, but Hershel paused for a moment to contemplate thoughtfully. 

Hershel hmm’d for a moment, until a smile and twinkle came to his eye as he came up with something.

“I managed to find a lovely novel this afternoon. I simply cannot wait to read it.” He spoke with a smile. “Now, your turn.”

“Does it have to be something that happened today?”

“Not at all.”

Luke mulled over the events of that day, his eyes catching on some pink clouds in the orange sky. The book  _ he’d  _ found today was helpful, but he felt there was something bigger he could be thankful for. He was aware this was a substitute for saying grace, but it felt kind of good to do regardless. Then it hit him, although he giggled a bit.

“Well, I suppose I’m thankful I’m getting divorced.” Luke chuckled.

“Understandably.” Hershel nodded once. “With that, I’ve been looking forward to trying your cooking.”

Luke felt some pride rise in his chest, but it was dampened. He cut into one of his more uneven ravioli pieces and let some of the ricotta ooze out. It was  _ delicious  _ looking, he was sure of it, but.

“I mean, I know I just said I was thankful, but…” Luke murmured as Hershel carefully cut some broccoli open at the stem, who raised his eyes from the plate. “I feel like I’m grieving, a little.”

“Grief is natural at the end of a long relationship, even if it was unhappy, Luke.”

“How exactly did you feel when Claire died? Or when Randall, um.” Luke tried to draw a comparison, rising a bit of ravioli to his lips.

“Well,  _ I  _ felt grief during my own divorce.”

Luke almost choked, but put his knife down to clear his throat. “You were married while I was-?” He couldn’t find a way to finish the sentence from disbelief.

“Indeed, to a woman named Esther.” Hershel mused. “She really was lovely.”

“What on earth happened?” Luke was still stunned, by the tone of his voice. Sympathy crept into his chest. “I’m sorry.”

“The relationship ran its course.” Hershel responded meekly. With that sentence, his body language had somehow changed a sliver. He was poking at his food absentmindedly. “Nothing much more to it.”

“Did you try to make it work?” Marriage counseling sessions returned to Luke’s mind and the various suggestions they had for his own. Perhaps he could have a better counselor, but the general diagnosis had been placed on a lack of quality time with each other. Bringing Irene weekly flowers for a solid year was a start, and increased sex was also something they managed for a month until he’d broken down sobbing from having the biweekly proposition sprung on him.

Hershel thought and nodded. “Of course, but-”

“It doesn’t sound like you to give up on someone you love.”

Hershel paused again, his eyes falling. “I had a bit of an important realization regarding myself.” 

“What sort of realization?”

“I don’t think I can form proper romantic connections with women.” Hershel admitted gently, returning to the meal Luke had prepared.

Luke let that tick over in his mind as Hershel tasted the pasta he’d made so lovingly. The older man faintly smiled. “Oh, this tastes delicious.”

“Can we go back to not being able to form romantic connections with women?” Luke nervously chuckled.

“Well, yes, Esther was a lovely woman and we were lovely friends, but she deserved someone who’d love her romantically.” Hershel explained as he cut into another piece of broccoli. “So, well, we got our divorce. And I’m sure she’s found someone who loves her.”

That made sense to Luke. Hershel had returned to enjoying his cooking with contentment, meanwhile. 

“If you’d like, I can do dishes for you.” Hershel offered between bites. 

“Oh, well, thank you.” 

“It’s my pleasure, Luke.” 

\--

Night had fallen and Luke was tweaking a light bulb that wasn’t screwed in properly, awkwardly standing on a chair. The living room had two lights in the ceiling, the far one was working but the one over his couch bed and all its blankets and cushions had failed that evening.

Hershel was in the other room, the lights off with the television flickering in its blue glow. It was a small cramped room, but cozy enough. Luke screwed the lightbulb in and snatched his hand away when it lit up, hissing in faint pain.

“God _ damnit. _ ” Luke grit his teeth and gasped at himself. How  _ awful.  _ Or maybe not. Or maybe yes. It kind of felt good to say. Standing in that room alone, he repeated it to himself. “Goddamnit.”

It brought him joy, oddly enough. Hopping down from the chair to slide back into the corner - he wasn’t entirely sure why Hershel had it, considering the dining table was outside - and quietly made his way into the television room.

It looked like Hershel was watching some sort of reality TV show. Something in a restaurant. Luke stopped to stare at the small square screen.

“Did you want to sit down?” Hershel offered after several silent moments of Luke staring intently at the television.

“Oh.” Luke was brought out of his thoughts, making the decision to take a seat. The couch wasn’t as soft as the one he’d been sleeping on, but it was warm given Hershel was sitting there too. 

He was sleepy, but he could talk a bit longer. 

“Is this how your restaurant worked, Luke?” Hershel asked gently as the camera panned over a charred unclean stovetop. A giant frying pan was stained back with ash, off to the side. A dirty mopped floor with various ingredients trodden on and smeared onto the vinyl tile.

Luke took a moment to think.

“Well, it was cleaner, usually, there was more time to clean given it was so quiet… And tile is a bad idea in a kitchen, because things get smushed between the tiles and it’s hard to mop up…” Luke rambled. “And you should get someone good to do backwash.”

“Backwash?” Hershel chuckled. “What’s that?”

“It’s like, dishes.” Luke shrugged. “But they pile up quick and you only have so many dishes and clean utensils, so you need someone to work quickly.”

“Interesting.” Hershel nodded, his eyes flicking back to the television screen as some yelling came from the screen, and some abrasive censor beeping. He bit his lip.

The two watched in silence, until Luke gently lay his head onto Hershel’s shoulder. Hershel did not respond verbally, but instead wrapped an arm around the man’s side to rub a thumb over his sleeve. 

Luke shuffled closer to press into Hershel’s neck, when he made the decision to place a butterfly soft kiss on his cheek. Hershel froze up.

“Luke…”

“I’m sorry, should I have… not?”

“No, no, it’s…” Hershel’s voice was choked. He inhaled slowly. “It was… lovely.”

Luke held his breath for just a moment, a rush of overwhelming emotion flooding his chest.

Hershel had his hands folded in his lap, shaking ever so slightly. Luke pressed his lips to the older man’s cheek once again, taking in his scent and pushing into the man’s side. He couldn’t think of anything better, anything nicer. Hershel turned his head to press his lips against Luke’s in return, finally cupping his jaw to hold him..

Their kiss was chaste but long. When they pulled away, they had no words. They knew what they were both thinking. All they could do was lay there.

“If you wish, Luke, you don’t need to sleep on the couch.” Hershel croaked after long seconds of comfortable silence.

“Could I hold you, then?”

“If you’d like to.” 

“I’d love to.”


	10. breakdown

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TRIGGER WARNINGS:  
> Implied Child Sex Abuse  
> Trauma  
> Manipulation

“Luke, do you mind taking out the wastebasket when you get up?” 

Luke opened his eye a crack, tangled in the sheets and blankets. Light shone through some slats in the curtains, but it was still dim in their room. They’d slept in the same bed for about a week, all cozy under the blankets and comforter. Hershel had been happy to welcome him in.

The younger man turned over to find Hershel had fallen asleep in an uncomfortable looking position, on one of his arms. 

“I think I’m going to be a bit sore today.” Hershel chuckled defeatedly. Luke smiled and decided to slowly sit up.

“Do you want something nice for breakfast?” Luke carefully sat up, pushing the blankets to cover Hershel’s side, and pushed him onto his back so he was more comfortable. “I could cook something.”

“Oh, it’s alright.” Hershel declined, but a crack of a smile came to his lips as Luke carefully ran his hands down his shoulders. “I can fix something for myself later, can’t I?”

“Yes, but I like doing nice things for you, Hershel.” Luke patted his firm cheek.

“The nice thing you could do right now is take out that wastebasket.” Hershel pressed his cheek into the man’s hand and made a faint  _ mrrr  _ noise. 

Luke moved to cup his jaw, leaning down to press a kiss to the man’s forehead and then moved to find that wastebasket. It was near the closet, where Hershel’s coat hung. It was a suit jacket only a couple years old. 

He knew Hershel tended to have secrets he liked to keep in his jacket and opted to just pick up the wastebasket instead. He opened the door a crack as to not let in too much light. 

Carrying it downstairs, he opened the back door to dump the contents into the outside bin and briefly considered doing some cooking for Hershel regardless. Or doing up the garden. It was depressing eating in such a diseased garden. 

Heading back inside, Luke’s eyes went over a photo on the wall he’d previously glanced over - it had somehow just faded into the background. It was in a small round frame, a photo of a smiling woman with long dark hair. Her smile could be seen even in her twinkling eyes. It occurred to him that was probably Esther.

It also occurred to Luke he hadn’t seen many framed photos around of her other than that, unless he hadn’t been looking. A part of him wanted to see their wedding photos.

Luke heard a shuffling down the stairs and spotted Hershel in his morning robe and slippers, rubbing his eyes with a book tucked under his arm. 

“Good morning again.” Luke greeted with a faint smile.

“I thought it would be best to return some books to the library early this morning.” Hershel spoke gently as he made it to the bottom of the stairs, plucking a mystery novel from the side of the sofa. “Are there any new books you’d like me to look for?”

“I can come with you to the library this time, maybe.” Luke asked. He hadn’t gone the last couple times, after all. A laugh rumbled Hershel’s chest.

“Oh, Luke, it’s alright. You don’t need to come.”

Luke paused but nodded. “Well, I’d like to read some more mysteries, if you can get some out.”

“Of course.” Hershel smiled ever so warmly, but Luke felt  _ something  _ had to be off.

Hershel was a tottering old thing, though. His hands looked bony as he picked up another book to add to the stack in his other arm. He set the pile down to take his gown off, showing he was dressed enough to go out, if a bit cold. He donned a thin jumper and some grey sweatpants, although Luke couldn’t imagine being cold in that.

Heading towards the door with the books under his arm, he nodded a goodbye and headed out to the Laytonmobile Mark 2.

Luke’s eyes went back to the framed picture, then to a bookshelf. He decided to pull a black unlabeled leather spine, only to find it was a photo album. On the front, another photo of the dark haired woman pinned in by the little corners with a wide smile. She looked much younger, her face stained with soot.

He wandered slowly over to the sofa to sit down, holding the album as if it was sacred before opening the heavy black cover. Inside, he was greeted by photos that forced him to shut the book again before he could register what was inside.

Luke didn’t like to admit it or talk about it to anyone, not even Irene, but seeing London in ashes on the television screen as a fresh young new American boy had left him with deep mental scars and recurring nightmares. While nothing compared to standing in the city streets and still smelling smoke a week later after the giant mech had arose, the colour images on the telly were too startlingly realistic.

He’d had to face it with his letters to the Professor being ignored, too. The memory made his heart shrivel in his chest, but he steeled himself and opened the cover again.

There was that woman again. Her hair tied up in a bandanna kneeling with a tool box by what looked like a twisted section train track. Luke remembered faintly that the trains in London  _ had  _ been stopped thanks to the incident. The next page of the album was simply a group of people, volunteers perhaps, all in a room around a fold up table with beers and weary smiles. Luke was startled to spot a much younger Hershel at the end of the table with a glass of water. For a moment, he couldn’t believe he’d ever looked so…  _ young.  _ He looked incredibly out of place wearing his old hat.

The next page, shots of completed building or clean up projects. Luke carefully noted Hershel was standing next to the dark haired woman in each of the shots, bitterly snickering at how he stood a whole head shorter than the woman, knowing he would be even shorter next to her.

The next couple photos were what he was looking for. Date photos and pictures the woman had taken grabbing the camera and pointing it towards themselves, in front of a rose bush, in front of a monument in a park, the London Museum… Hershel looked actually happy. Luke felt a stabbing pain in his chest, but he couldn’t tell what from. Hershel was happy in the photos, which is what he deserved to be. But he himself had been completely alone when these were taken.

Wedding photos. Hershel had seemingly stopped wearing his hat from there, and then onto honeymoon photos. It appeared to be somewhere in Monaco, judging by some cursive scribbles on the corner of the photo.

Luke turned the page and saw some things in the photos he should not be seeing. It took him a moment to register.

That same woman, laying in a hospital bed clutching a very red newborn swaddled in a towel. His heart fell to his stomach. Countless pages of photos followed, no matter how far Luke flipped. Holidays, first birthday for the baby girl, another photo of  _ another  _ baby in the hospital, baby boy’s first birthday, going to the newly redeveloped park to have a picnic. Luke felt nausea rise in his throat at the implications. Hershel hadn’t told him about  _ this.  _ But  _ why not? _

He shut the album and took a moment to register. Hershel had  _ told  _ him he’d married and divorced. He hadn’t mentioned that he’d had  _ children _ .

_ They’d gotten divorced. _

_ Supposedly  _ amicably.

Luke stormed upstairs to the man’s room, slamming the door open. He knocked Hershel’s jacket off the door handle and found himself staring at a meager file cabinet. He could feel a wave of dizziness wash over him, until Luke noticed some half crumpled paper on the ground in the exposed inner pocket of Hershel’s jacket. It was an offer to mow lawns for minimum wage. 

He was going to storm or rip the room apart, but he gingerly leaned down to pick up the jacket in his shaking hands. Reaching into the pockets, he pulled out a couple crumpled papers.

_ Looking for sous chef or line cook, experience required _

_ Seeking babysitter _

_ Manual labourer for helping move _

_ Cashier at store position open for Monday to Friday  _

_ Sous chef position, experience wanted _

Squinting at the dates in the corner, Luke spotted they were both several weeks old. The week they’d gone to the library together - and come to think of it, he hadn’t left the house since that day. He had no reason to. He thought he had no reason to.

Luke felt lightheaded but his mind flicked back to the larger situation weighing on his mind. Hershel had gotten divorced and quietly left out the part about the fact he had children, and had said  _ nothing  _ about it. How old would they be?

His eyes went to the file cabinet. He tore it open and fumbled to see if he could find anything. Bills, deed to the land, old certificates, his various degrees… 

Filed under D, Luke snatched up an official looking letter. He could barely read it properly, and it took him a moment to realize his eyes were filled with tears. He was betrayed. Mistreated. He was an idiot.

_ Hello Hershel Layton… proceedings are being finalized… money has been split… custody arrangements have been made-  _

Luke forced himself to focus on the words.

_ -additional restraining orders have been filed against you on behalf of the two children by their mother to prevent ha- _

Luke tried his best to not crumple or tear the paper where he stood. He found himself crushing the paper back into the cabinet, slamming it shut and grabbing the side to toss it to the ground. The tears were coming first, flowing uselessly and unfettered. The scream that ripped from his throat  _ hurt,  _ but he just kept screaming.


	11. reach heaven through violence

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TRIGGER WARNINGS:  
> Physical Violence  
> Elder Abuse

Hershel clicked the lights on to hopefully brighten up the cottage living room as he stepped in through the door. During midday, the house got too dark for his liking and the natural light couldn’t shine through. A bit dismal, he knew. It was a good thing Luke had replaced that lightbulb the other day.

Setting down the bag of books he’d gotten from the library, something  _ hard  _ hit the back of his head. He tasted blood on his tongue and went toppling forwards, hitting the ground full force.

He didn’t have enough time to register before the blow came down on his head again.

“I can’t  _ fucking  _ believe you.” A hiss came from behind. Hershel shakily raised his head only to be yanked up and pulled by the back of his jumper collar and slammed head first into the wall.

“Luke?” Hershel’s voice was a whine from his throat. The wood collided with the back of his head again, and he saw his vision go dark around the edges for a moment. 

Being tossed and hitting the ground like a brick, his old body flared with aches and new sharp pains all over. Hershel found himself staring up into Luke’s eyes. He saw a familiar anger, and his heart sunk. But perhaps this was for the best, he decided. If he was finally being murdered, it would be a fitting end to be at Luke’s hand.

“I’m going to kill you.” Luke was grasping a wooden stake from the garden, still stained with dirt. “I- you lied to me.”

“About what?” Hershel croaked, and had the man’s sharp boot come down on his neck, forcing the air from him as he stomped on his weak throat. 

“You didn’t just get  _ divorced,  _ you had-” Luke saw Hershel’s eyes rise. He kicked him in the chin and slammed his boot back down onto his throat, drawing blood from where his heel dug into the thin skin. “You had  _ children  _ and n-now-”

Luke interrupted himself to wipe his wet reddened eyes on his sleeve. “You molested them, didn’t you?”

The boot on his throat stopped him from responding. He wasn’t going to, even if he had words to defend himself. Luke’s eyes bored down harder. 

“You usually have something to say, don’t you? Some clarification?”

Hershel didn’t speak a word, tears springing to his eyes. He had nothing to say. Luke tightened his grip around the stake and let himself fall to his knees on the man’s fragile chest. He came down with his knee hard on a rib, and as he heard a pained uncharacteristic yelp, and for a moment put his full weight on the knee before sitting on his chest.

“Are you going to actually kill me?” Hershel’s voice was hoarse, almost a whine. 

Luke didn’t respond, tightening his expression and raising the stake again. Hershel lifted a hand in front of his face reflexively, only for Luke to pause.

Luke instead grabbed the man’s arm, forcing it to the ground and slamming the stake’s point down onto his exposed forearm with a grip of sheer iron. Hershel was useless, not someone to scream, but he kicked his legs without any effect and let a cry ring from his throat.

“It’s what yo- you should’ve done to yourself a long time ago!” Luke’s own voice was hoarse from his screaming earlier, dropping the stake to beat down harshly on the man’s arm with his bare fists. With a miraculously well placed hit, there was a crunch..

“I was too afraid.” Hershel’s voice was barely a pained whisper, using his free hand to point gently to his throat. Luke’s mind was swimming. This was an  _ offer.  _ The man  _ wanted  _ to go into his goodnight the way  _ he  _ wanted. Miserable little worm pedophile child molester waste of air. 

Luke made an attempt to stab the stake into his arm instead, only to find the tip too blunt. Instead, he bashed the square side against his black and blue wrist a couple more times and briefly considered stabbing out his eyes. Pierce them on the blunt end of the stake then crush them between his teeth, or push them down his throat. Hershel’s finger still rested on his throat.

“I’m not going to let you get out of this  _ easy,  _ you stupid- stupid-” Luke didn’t have the capacity for an intelligent insult. 

“That’s alright.” 

Lifting his full weight and dropping down knees first onto the man’s chest, creating a horrible crunching noise, Luke began to bash the stake over his head and face. Hershel’s right hand had gone blue from bruises and blood, his neck too. He quivered in silence, merely taking it.

“Do you feel bad  _ at all? _ ” Luke rasped until he felt some old emotions rushing back into his chest. Being a young boy in a new house. Writing letters to a man who would never respond to him. A man who’d told him to not make a scene before he’d left. Going to school and wanting to tear his hair out. His mother’s initial but slow moving cancer diagnosis. Writing another letter. Sending a wedding invitation. Getting letters back because they’d bounced and never reached their destination, or having been merely returned. Seeing and hearing some things on the news. He was still alive, just…

“I feel awful every day.” Hershel croaked. A vague response.

“And you  _ left  _ me.” Luke’s hands began to shake like mad. “I would’ve-”

“I would have?”

“I would have let you  _ have me instead of them. _ ” Luke rasped. It felt like poison on his tongue to say, but it was true. It couldn’t have been a much worse life. He wouldn’t have been called broken or diagnosed with any sort of pathological disease to explain his sexuality. He wouldn’t have been married to a woman in a miserable marriage. He wouldn’t have spent hours each night begging to God.

“That isn’t a good attitude to have.” Hershel’s voice was a whisper. Blood was dripping from the corner of his mouth, and one nostril had a stream. 

“You could have done whatever you’d wanted to do with me and I would have  _ thanked you. _ ” There was a rage in his chest burning him to a crisp. His throat was sore and the tears wouldn't flow anymore. 

“You used to beg.” Hershel spoke wistfully. Luke took both ends of the stake and brought it down hard over the top of Hershel’s head, only for it to break in two.

There was silence. The two pieces were too short to wield as weapons on their own, too blunt to pierce skin.

“If you’re done, the throat would be the easiest way to finish this off.” Hershel whispered harshly, blood now flowing from both his nostrils, his lip bleeding an angry red and trickling from the corner of his mouth. “If it’s what you think is right.”

Luke’s eyes met with Hershel’s, and then the useless stake he’d grabbed from the garden in its two pieces. And without a word, Luke scrabbled to his feet and ran for the door, throwing it open and sprinting away. Hershel lay, aching all over and immediately making the decision to let the dizziness claim him.


	12. reclamation

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TRIGGER WARNINGS:  
> Gaslighting  
> Internalized Homophobia  
> Pray The Gay Away

Luke fumbled with what he had in his wallet. He had barely any money and he’d left all his things back at the cottage. Perhaps he hadn’t thought this through. He had found himself in the small town square again, sitting on the side of a fountain and counting his cash.

It was at least warm sitting on the sun warmed stone. He needed space to think on what to do next or how to get his stuff back. He  _ still  _ hadn’t even breached the surface on what he’d have to do to get a legal divorce from Irene processed. 

Luke had done many stupid things recently, he realized. He could have moved somewhere else in New York or anywhere else within the United States, and he’d have been fine. No, he had to run all the way back to his home country and find a man he knew was a pedophile.

He was stupid to be upset that he had been manipulated like that. What did he expect?

Luke groaned in frustration and pushed himself up from the fountain. He needed to find a place to stay and seek guidance for  _ all this.  _ And where did he usually go for guidance?

His eyes scanned the area around him. Short brick buildings and stores selling various knick-knacks. An antique store, a bakery, a corner store, a small supermarket a block away he could make out, a furniture store, a carpet store, the library… Luke’s eyes gravitated to a steeple poking above an oak tree.

Luke made his way there, crossing the empty road and hurried over the old cracked footpath to the building. It was a weathered old building, white panelboards, tall windows, a garden and apple tree out back. The twin brown wooden doors were wide open.

It felt like solace as he hopped up the paint cracked wooden stairs to walk inside. The rows of silent pews weren’t something Luke was familiar with in his own church back in New York, but the quiet and cool air soothed his soul. There was no one inside besides himself. 

His eyes went to a corkboard of various community events, no job listings though. A community movie night, a prayer meeting, the soup kitchen… Luke’s eyes went back to the inside of the church, spotting a young man standing in the aisle, his hands on the pews beside him as he leaned his hips to the side.

“Good afternoon, friend.” The man spoke, his voice echoing within the walls. Luke awkwardly turned to face him, clasping his hands together. “Is there anything I could do for you today?”

“Are- are you open?” Luke asked softly.

“We’re always open. Sermons are at 9 o’clock on Sunday mornings, but we have a library of helpful books and a place to sit and pray.” The man informed him.

Luke nodded and carefully moved inside, being careful not to let his shoes make too much noise against the wooden floor. The man beamed, closer up Luke could see his cleanly shaven youthful face, brown eyes, and neatly cropped haircut. He was wearing a short sleeved blue polo shirt and somewhat tight jeans. He appeared to be in his mid twenties. “If you need advice too, I’m all ears.”

“I could use some, actually.” Luke felt his throat tightening. He hadn’t talked to anyone besides Hershel in ages, and he was beginning to notice that may have been deliberate on his part. 

“Take a seat then. Are you not from around here?” The man moved into a pew to take a seat, his hands going to his knees. Luke eyed his toned arms but didn’t think much of them as he took his seat.

“Well, I’m just passing through, kind of.” Luke let his own hands rest on his lap. A firm hand patted his back.

“Where are you from?”

“New York.” 

“Well then, you’re quite a long way from home.” The man chuckled. “My name’s Ash.”

“Luke.” 

“Any reason you’ve stopped here in this town? Going north?” Ash asked gently. Luke found himself trying to lay back into the hard wooden pew. 

“Well, my…” Luke felt a beat of shame. “My wife kicked me out a couple weeks ago, and I just wasn’t really sure where to go, so I guess I had to track down an old friend of sorts, and then things went bad and now I don’t know where to go.”

Ash nodded and chuckled. “So, you’ve had a long journey then.” He replied, still bright and unfettered.

“Yeah, sure have.”

“If you want my advice, I’d say take the first plane home and go make up to your wife. She doesn’t have the authority over you to do that.” Ash spoke, the smile unchanging on his lips. “My wife puts me on the couch all the time, but I wouldn’t let me kick her out. She’s my darling, but I’m the head of the house, right?”

“I’m not a particularly good head of the house, when you say it like that.” Luke replied, hoarsely. He’d been the breadwinner, sure, but with just about everything else he’d been a pushover. He barely got to make decisions for himself, let alone Irene. 

“You’re a man, it’ll come to you. It’s what God’s designed you to do. Your poor lady must be distraught.”

“I was miserable with her.” 

“Were you?”

Ash’s gaze was so piercing Luke almost said no. But, he  _ was  _ miserable. That was one thing he was definitely sure of.

“I really  _ was  _ miserable.” Luke insisted, a waver in his voice.

“Well, it’s nothing some elbow grease and counseling can’t fix, I don’t think.” Ash chirped. “Find a way to fall in love with her again, you know?”

“But I wasn’t in love in the first place.” Luke croaked.

“You’ll get there, in time.”

\--

Luke stumbled into a motel room he was sure would be filled with mould and insects, but he didn’t have anywhere else to go, he unfortunately knew. He was an idiot. He should have brought his carry bag with him instead of sprinting out the door.

The bed was  _ big,  _ but the cream comforter had strange browning water stains and the pillows were uneven. There was a CRT television on a surely rotting wood stand, and a stucco patterned ceiling that might have some kind of asbestos. Luke grumbled aloud at the thought.

He had to retake stock. It looked like the best place to go  _ would  _ be home to Irene. The idea stung his chest, but maybe if he tried just a  _ little  _ harder he could love her. 

There were nice things about her. She had lovely long hair and a warm smile. She… painted well. 

Luke found himself shambling to the side of the bed and sinking to his knees. Submission. He had read so many times that it wasn’t  _ him  _ that needed to submit, clearly it was his wife Irene. But then he needed to submit to God, and surely he would find some sort of joy. He didn’t usually pray like this, but it felt necessary.

He was begging.

“Dear Lord.” Luke swallowed a lump in his throat. “I’m so sorry. I don’t know what to do.”

He knew he couldn’t expect a direct response. He’d never heard the voice of God like Irene was blessed to do. There was a sparkle in her eyes when she heard it. He was deficient. No matter how hard he tried or prayed or slammed his head into brick walls after work he  _ couldn’t fix it. _

“Please fix me.” Luke found himself trembling, but his brain was a mess. It would be better if it melted into sludge onto the ground with the rest of his useless queer flesh. "Lord, I’ve tried my best and I’m still helpless. I have no power of my own over my flesh.”

Of course, an instant result was impossible, but it’s what Luke felt like he needed. God worked in mysterious ways. Or maybe he was just meant to suffer like this. Everyone _else_ could be fixed. Except him. And Hershel was just too evil to be fixed. He’d met and talked to someone at church who’d been fixed to try and figure out how to do the same, and then he’d _ruined it_ for both of them by corrupting him. Luke didn’t know what he’d done, but they’d had sex _once_ after the man broke down onto him and then he moved to another state with his wife in shame and he’d never seen him again.

Surely he just broke everything around him? It wasn’t  _ impossible. _

He trembled and tried to continue his prayer, but his throat was too hoarse. He just finished with  _ amen,  _ and let the tears flow uselessly. Tomorrow he could go find the cottage again and pick up his things to go home. He didn’t want to face Hershel again, but hopefully he’d just be finding a corpse.


	13. atonement

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TRIGGER WARNINGS:  
> Suicidal Ideation  
> Pedophilia

The door was wide open and held back with a pot when Luke approached the cottage again. He was seething, but his anger had dulled into a pulsing ache in his chest. He had spent time devising a plan on getting home and all he needed was the cash he’d happened to leave in his bag back in Hershel’s place.

Even with the door wide open, Luke rapped his knuckles on the glass as he stepped inside to spot the house cleaner than it had been when he left. The bookshelf was neat, the couch was spotless without a speck of dust, nothing seemed out of place. There was a brand new sheen to everything. The bag he’d taken when he fled from the US was neatly on the floor, zipped up but seemingly repacked judging by how full it looked.

Luke moved to pick the bag up, for a moment wondering if he could just take it and leave. It was probably a good idea to check what it was full of, though, so he set it on the couch. As he pulled the zipper, a sliver of green showed. He raised an eyebrow, but his expression turned to shock as he opened the bag to reveal stacks and stacks of 50 pound notes strapped together covering all his belongings.

Baffled, Luke picked up a fistful to see what was underneath, spotting his clothes. They appeared to have been neatly folded.

“I thought it was the best I could do for you before you go back to forging your own life.” Hershel’s voice came from right behind him. Luke spun around.

Hershel’s eyes carried a deep exhaustion, and he held a cup of tea on a saucer in his left hand. He was wearing a simple loose pullover shirt, but Luke’s eyes were pulled to a single enormous black and blue bruise that seemed to cover his entire right arm. Yet, there wasn’t a hint of anger anywhere. Only complete exhaustion, and perhaps sympathy.

“What  _ is  _ it?” Luke was just baffled. Only once the words had left his mouth he felt anger sink in that he let himself  _ speak  _ to him.

“It’s my life savings. I thought you would put them to better use than I could. I also packed and folded your things.” Hershel replied.

Luke looked between the bag and Hershel’s exhausted eyes.

“If you’re dead set on giving away your life savings, then shouldn’t it go to your kids?” Luke murmured. “I have money to get home.”

“Home?”

“I’m going back to Irene.”

Sympathy crossed Hershel’s face.

“If you think that’s for the best, then I hope you can be happy there.” Hershel nodded once. “I don’t think the kids would want anything from me, at the end of the day.”

Luke didn’t respond but rezipped his bag and put the strap over his shoulder. Hershel was too hard to yell or stay angry at, as disgusting as Luke felt for not spitting on the man’s shoes. He was a  _ child molester  _ and had the audacity to still be standing before him alive and breathing.

“Before you go, I want to ask you to do a favour.” Hershel gently spoke. “It benefits both of us.”

“What is it?”

Hershel moved to put his teacup down on a chair, carefully maneuvering it using his left arm. It occurred to Luke his dominant arm was too broken to do anything, and even setting down the teacup made him grunt in pain. 

“I’m going to go outside to get some fresh air, and sometime before you leave, I want you to tip the contents of that glass into my tea.” Hershel explained. 

“What’s in it, exactly?”

“I’m going to breathe some fresh air in the garden.” Hershel repeated and didn’t give Luke time to respond before he walked outside. Luke glanced down at the saucer and teacup with the little glass.

He put the bag down to pick up the glass, deciding perhaps he could fulfil that for the man before he left. As he brought it to his nose to see what it was made of, he almost choked.

It smelled like sweet artificial floral cleaning materials mixed with a sharp sterile bleach, and a weaker scent of fish or garlic. He put it down, confused and a little disgusted. It took him a tick to realize what Hershel was asking him to do.

Marching outside, he spotted Hershel leaning with one hand on the table facing the garden wall. He stepped on the smooth stones until the man turned his head.

“Please don’t tell me if you’ve put it in.” Hershel spoke before Luke could say anything.

“Are you trying to get me to kill you?” Luke hissed.

“Isn’t that what you want?” Hershel spoke with an uncanny calmness. “For that matter, it’s something I’d have done a very long time ago if I wasn’t a sad terrified man.”

“You can’t just  _ put that on me. _ ”

Hershel had no response, but he dipped his head. His trimmed nails dug into the wood of the driftwood table.

“You are aware of why the divorce happened, yes?” Hershel murmured.

“You raped your kids?” Luke replied, the words coming too easily off his tongue.

“No. I never went near them.” Hershel’s eyes fell. “I think they’re right to distrust me, I don’t trust myself either. But I was too distant and I failed them and Esther in that regard.”

“So you’re still a bad father?”

“Yes.”

Luke paused until something else came to mind.

“But you have a  _ restraining order  _ filed against you.”

“Indeed, but I think before you tip the mix I made up into my tea I think you should know what happened.” Hershel murmured.

\--

Hershel had his lights off, the lamp in his office on and shining on his desk. He’d cleared a space and pushed his archeological brushes to the side, still unable to put them away despite everything. It had been a long day, Esther was out working late and the kids were in the living room.

Esther worked terribly hard. He did have some flowers for her when she got home, resting on the kitchen bench.  _ He  _ worked terribly hard too, perhaps more than he needed. Kat sometimes liked to come in to see him clean whatever artifact he had brought to him to clean and analyse, but he was usually too focused on his work to stop and chat.

That’s not what he was thinking about for the time, though. Hershel clutched a sketching pencil he usually used to replicate the patterns of pottery onto sheets of paper so he could compare them against existing patterns, but for now he was sketching a person.

Hershel cursed himself for not having a reference on hand, and so he was working from memory. There were old photo albums in the living room tea table, he could have grabbed his own, but, again the kids were playing out there, and he was in no state to face them right now.

He tried to get the perfect curve of the boy’s jaw on the page, a slow stroke he’d erased a couple times over, until he finally got it just right. He’d already sketched the boy’s face, his dark eyes and little nose, his soft hair and his smile. Luke. 

If Hershel did the math, of course, Luke would be 28 this year. He missed him dearly, each little thought sent pangs of longing into his chest. He wondered all the time what he would be doing now. Surely happily living with another man and being the successful man he was growing up to be. 

He shaded the boy’s apron in the sketch. It had been haunting his thoughts for days now. 

It was probably pathetic to zone out at his desk when he was working in the university wishing he had Luke to return home to. It was coming up close to two decades since he’d seen him.

_ Professah, I made tea and dinner.  _ Luke’s eyes and a smile on his lips, the apron Hershel was presently shading was pale green and white plaid in his mind’s eye. He imagined his home he’d managed to finally paid off with Esther with enough room for the kids to grow up in except he could come home to Luke and no one else.

The house would be a bit big for them, he envisioned more of a small flat or a cottage, but on the contrary there would be plenty of room for Luke to sprawl out and all sorts of places they could have sex. The table? The garden? The sofa, the bathroom, their bedroom, the office…

Hershel finished the sketch. Luke from memory, in his apron and nothing more, sweet little eyes and chubby cheeks with a faint shy smile. Tapping his pencil on the page, he felt his throat constricting and his eyes becoming wet. Hot tears flowed down his cheeks yet he didn’t make a sound.

He slumped over the drawing and let his mind wander. He really did need Luke, especially right now. What he would give to just let Luke snuggle into his side and give him silent but reassuring company. 

Biting his lip and trying to hold back the tears as his fingers dug into his desk, his thoughts raced over the boy. Wide eyes, his soft skin, his chubby thighs, Luke had always been so patient with him. In his little apron he’d hurry over the moment he stepped in from work, pouting and ready to prepare him tea or a snack and make him feel better.

Hershel forced himself to sit up straight as the door opened a crack, golden light from the hallway shining in. He swiveled on the chair to spot Esther in the doorway, concern painting her face. 

“Dear, is everything alright?” She pushed some dark hair behind one of her ears, donning her knit sweatshirt and loose skirt she liked to wear around the house. Emotion overwhelmed his comparatively tiny frame.

Making a quick but heavy decision, Hershel turned the chair to pick up the journal with his shaking hands. He quietly bowed his head and held the journal out.

“I think you should have the right to read what’s in here.” Hershel croaked, holding it open to the page he’d drawn and written on. Plans. Every previous page in the journal had similar sketches of Luke, sometimes naked, sometimes displaying himself, sometimes fully dressed or in his old school uniform. Thoughts and images that haunted his head. In a storage cupboard he had at least four more journals filled with just that since he’d begun to draw the things in his head.

Esther’s face was dark as she took the journal, looking down to the leather cover.

“What’s in it?” She asked, looking at Hershel keeled over with his hands clasped together, a silent visage of shame. She opened it and immediately spotted a sketched young boy with his legs wide open. Then another drawing. And another, and another as she turned through the pages. The name  _ Luke  _ over and over. The child she’d heard about from the few years Hershel buried himself in case work.

Hershel finally sat up, his hands shaking as they were clasped, meeting Esther’s gaze. Stern, but unreadable. 

“If you’d like me to, I can begin drafting divorce papers tomorrow...” Hershel spoke with a waver in his voice, but as the words fell off his tongue he wondered if perhaps he was jumping to conclusions too quickly. Esther’s gaze remained stony.

“You should start them tonight.” She spoke flatly.

Hershel dipped his head again, feeling the silence engulf him. 

\--

Hershel cleared his throat into his fist as he finished his explanation, then sighing. He had explained the circumstances slowly, remaining stoic but it seemed he was trying to be strong as he told it, holding his broken bruised arm with the other.

“Now, before you leave, I’d like you to tip the mix I made into my tea.” Hershel asked, voice softer than before. “You won’t have to worry about me anymore.”

Luke ticked over the new information and found himself staring at a battered hollow shell of a man.

“Why couldn’t you do it yourself?” Luke was hoarse, finding his own throat raw.

“I’m too afraid.” Hershel’s voice was hesitant. “That’s why I’m asking you to do it for me.”

The man wasn’t entirely innocent, but he wasn’t deserving of death or punishment that he hadn’t already. Luke felt all his anger melt into a puddle of sad liquids to pool in his heart. He had been loved for so many years and even when he’d been away for so many years, and the thought felt almost incomprehensible. Hershel remained silent, he had no words left to say. 

“I…” Luke tried to force some words from his throat. “I’m not going to kill you.”

“If you’re not going to be able to, I can take time building up the courage, and you can go home.” Hershel whispered.

“I’m not going to leave, either.” Luke asserted himself, making Hershel raise his confused sad eyes.

“Why not?” 

“I really…” Luke felt his throat stinging, as he blinked away the tears brimming in his eyes. Hershel was staring him dead in the eye, somewhere between confused and shattered. “I really love you.”

A forlorn smile came over Hershel's face.

“Do you really?” Hershel croaked. He didn’t seem to believe it. “I’ve done so much to you. I took your childhood from you. I manipulated to keep you here.”

“I think we could start over.” Luke whispered.

“But  _ how _ ?” Hershel met his eyes again. Luke’s eyes went to the withered blighted garden behind them in all its former glory.

Stepping around the table and into the garden, he clasped his hands together as Hershel followed him with his eyes.

“We have to work with what we have. We could start by uprooting this garden and replanting it.” Luke spoke. He had some knowledge of flowers from some of the ladies back in America who attended his church, and his mind was already flooding with ideas.

“Oh, goodness, Luke.” Hershel slowly pushed himself up from the chair to hobble over to the man, only to be met with a teary but determined gaze from the man.

“It’ll be a project for the two of us. Uproot the diseased plants, and we can grow with the new ones.” Luke felt a grin spreading across his face.

“We’ll have to wait for my arm to heal, but, if that’s what you’d like.” Hershel faintly smiled at the man. 

“Come on, you think it’d be a fun project, don’t you?” Luke asserted.

“Well, yes, it does sound like a lovely idea, and I did let the garden fall aside, unfortunately.” Hershel chuckled, until he paused. “Ah, and, I love you too, Luke.”

Luke looked over the garden and mentally planned some flower placements as his eyes scoured the flowerbeds, until a surprise kiss was pressed to his cheek.


	14. growing and healing

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TRIGGER WARNINGS: None for this chapter

Hershel held a semi rusted watering can, grasping it in his left hand as he carefully watered the various flowers Luke had planted earlier that day. They wanted to pack the flowerbeds tightly as well as perhaps extend them further out into areas where light would still touch the plants. 

It had been a week since Luke had moved back in, and as it turned out, Hershel’s arm needed a sling and a cast. On top of that, he indeed needed help along the house and so far, the planning of their garden had been mostly Hershel directing as he sat on the driftwood chair while Luke dug little holes with a trowel on his knees, taking plants from the plastic pottles and settling them into the dirt. 

As for now though, Hershel was quietly listening to a bird that had landed somewhere in the branches of the tree above. He was pouring the last of the watering can over a patch of bluebells when the can finally ran dry. He’d have to refill it in a second, but he took a moment to look up into the tree branches. Green shoots were appearing from the dull bark, and in a week they’d surely have sprouted into leaves. Hershel spotted the bird he was hearing perched on a thinner branch, pecking at a shoot. He paused to admire the beige feathers flecked with cream - perhaps a boring colour, but they complimented each other all the same.

He watched the bird peck and briefly pick at its own feathers before it zipped away, almost too fast for his eyes to follow. Contemplating on that for a moment, he turned around to step over the stepping stones to hurry inside to refill the watering can. 

Luke was hunched over the same sheets of paper he’d been focusing on for hours now, a fountain pen in hand he tapped habitually against the kitchen countertop. Hershel quietly moved past him to the sink to refill the watering can, noticing that somehow, Luke had managed to keep the paperwork in a tidy precarious stack.

The second Hershel put the watering can under the tap, Luke’s eyes snapped up from what he was doing. He exhaled.

“Stressful writing?” Hershel turned the cold tap to let a steady stream of water slowly fill the watering can, keeping his eyes fixed on how miraculously tidy Luke was being.

“It’s just about done, I think.” Luke spoke, relief in his voice. “I need a break from it.”

“We’ll likely have to travel to America at some point to properly file the paperwork and get a meeting with Irene, I hope you understand.” Hershel reminded him as he checked the water level of the watering can, and used a firm hand to turn the tap off.

“Well, yeah, I know that, I’m just not really looking forward to it.” Luke buried his fingers in his own hair, grief painting his eyes for a moment. “I don’t think it’s going to be fun working out the details, and I don’t know if she’s going to be hostile or not.”

“Hostile?”

“Shouty, angry, or wanting to try again for whatever damn-” Luke paused as he realized what word had slipped out of his mouth. “...Damn reason.”

Hershel chuckled. He wasn’t a man to swear himself, but Luke deserved the freedom to speak freely without fear of divine punishment. 

“I’ll be right there for you when we do get there.” Hershel chuckled. “Or if you’d rather not have me be there-”

“It would be nice to have some backup support.” Luke murmured.

The mood in the dimly lit room was just a bit down, Hershel read, even as Luke rested his pen on top of the stack of papers. He stared off into the distance with blank eyes.

Watering the garden could wait for now, Hershel decided. Strolling into the living room to reach up with his good arm onto a shelf, he selected a random vinyl record and carefully brought it down to eye-level.

Luke raised his blank stare from the papers as the crackle of a gramophone started up. His first thought was how long it had been since he’d used something that wasn’t a cassette tape for music, but a familiar fuzzy distorted acoustic guitar came from the living room.

Hershel stepped around the corner, standing straight with a wobbly smile, one arm tucked behind his back with his other arm still in his sling. The angelic plinks of the soft distortion on the piano. 

“If you’d like, we could…” Hershel cleared his throat into his fist. “We could dance.”

“With a broken arm, Hershel?”

“We can try.”

Sliding off the chair, Luke made his way into Hershel’s arms, putting his head on his shoulder and being careful not to lean too hard on his broken one as his good arm wrapped around his waist. He was not an experienced dancer, he had no idea what he was doing, but he got the feeling that wasn’t the intent right now.

“That’s it.” Hershel whispered. He squeezed Luke’s hand in his own tightly. It was slightly warmer than his - perhaps it was a sign he was getting old. He was always just a little cold these days.

A smile did creep onto Luke’s face as they stepped around each other. Hershel smelled faintly of vanilla, he found as he nestled into his neck. 

“Don’t we need more plants for the garden?” Luke murmured into the man’s neck.

“Yes, but, it’s thriving for now.” Hershel replied gently. “Wouldn’t you prefer to live in a city, though?”

“Oh, if I can’t find work here. This place is lovely.”

“Goodness. I thought you preferred big cities.” 

“New York’s taken it out of me.” Luke chuckled. “I’d rather we be here together just for right now.” 

“We’ll just see what happens here, then.” Hershel replied gently, squeezing Luke’s shoulder.

The garden could wait for now. The flowers bloomed in hundreds of different soft watercolour shades. The soil was fresh and fertile and by tomorrow Luke would be setting down some more plants. Perhaps they could plant a new tree or even expand the garden to accommodate more flowers or start a vegetable garden to grow their own meals.

There was plenty of time for the garden to regrow and prosper, and it would thrive for years to come.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading!


End file.
